Oxymandias

• Shelley was well-educated
• he had a troubled relationship with his parents especially his father
• Shelley was expelled from Oxford for promoting atheist views
• Shelleys parent rejected his beliefs like sexual freedom
• He had a complicated love life
• Shelley was considered the most influential romantic poets of all time
• Ramses II of Egypt - one of the greatest pharaohs ever
• Egyptian Pharaohs were seen as gods on earth and were worshipped as such
• Ramses had many statues built in his honour
• I met a traveller from an antique land
• Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless thing
• My name is Ozymandias king of kings : look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!
• Round the decay of that colossal wreck
• boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away
• Mostly a sonnet - love for himself
• 10th line is a clear exception - arrogance
• Atypical rhyme scheme could show acceptance that everything fades in the end, even poetic tradition