Ozymandias

“Ozymandias” is one of the most famous sonnets in European literature. Written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), it was first published in 1818 in the Examiner, a literary periodical that introduced the works of many Romantics, including Shelley and his contemporary, John Keats. Shelley later included the sonnet in his poem collection Rosalind and Helen, published in 1819.

Now one of Shelley’s most recognizable and widely anthologized poems, “Ozymandias” was the result of a good-natured writing contest between friends. Shelley and his houseguest, the poet and novelist Howard Smith, challenged each other to write a sonnet based on a passage from the Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus. The passage described an Egyptian monument that was ancient even to its author:

One of these [monuments], made in a sitting posture, is the greatest in all Egypt, the measure of his foot exceeding seven cubits. This piece is not only commendable for its greatness, but admirable for its cut and workmanship, and the excellency of the stone. In so great a work there is not to be discerned the least flaw, or any other blemish.

Upon it there is this inscription:—‘I am Osymandyas, king of kings; if any would know how great I am, and where I lie, let him excel me in any of my works’ (

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