Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was an English Romantic poet, dramatist, essayist, and novelist. Shelley wrote and published consistently however most publishers and journals refused to publish his works for fear of being arrested for blasphemy or sedition. His works were highly influential to the following generation of Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets and continued to inspire contemporary poets to this day. Source

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Published:

1818

Length:

Shorty

Literary Movements:

Romanticism

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Death & Loss

Memory & The Past

Literary Devices:

Alliteration

the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession

Allusion

an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference

Enjambment

a line break interrupting the middle of a phrase which continues on to the next line

Irony

the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect

Metaphor

a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic

Synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa