Ozymandias

Shelley's fourteen-line wreck of empire: a shattered colossus in an empty desert.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Percy Bysshe Shelley

type

Sonnet

era

Romantic era (1818)

language

English

verse form

Sonnet (ababacdcedefef)

cantos count

14

Core Principles & Analysis

• Published in 1818 in a friendly sonnet race with Horace Smith.
• 'Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!' is its famous boast-in-ruins.
• Its subject, Ramesses II, the site calls the greatest New Kingdom pharaoh.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Ozymandias