The reign of Ramesses II, situated in the 13th century BCE, was marked by his conquests in warfare, his magnificent architectural feats, and his extensive realm stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Nile delta. The historical origins of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” lie within the annals of ancient Egyptian civilization and the ubiquitous presence of one of its paramount rulers, Ramesses II, who was referred to as Ozymandias in Greek culture. A witness to this eternal truth, the speaker of the poem testifies to the transience of earthly authority and the utter futility of human ambition as he comes upon the broken pieces of a once-great statue of the ancient Egyptian ruler Ramesses II. Shelley expertly portrays the idea that even the greatest of civilizations will eventually fall to ruin by the use of florid and ornate language, leaving behind only relics of their past glory to be remembered by future generations. This poem is a profound reflection on the transience of human strength and the certainty of death and forgetfulness. Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest British poets of the nineteenth century, wrote the epic poem “Ozymandias.” It was first published under the pen name “Gilrastes” in 1818 in The Examiner of London.
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