ozymandias

Percy bysshe shelley

Published: 1818

Birth - Death: 1792 - 1822

Monarch: George III

Prime Minister: Robert Jenkinson (Tory)

Nationality: English

Probably a result between a competition between Shelley and his friend Horace Smith who stayed at the Shelly’s home between 26-28th December. A mutual friend, Leigh Hunt, the young editor of The Examiner magazine, liked to organise sonnet competitions; 15 minutes was the standard time allowed. In such competitions two or more poets would each write a poem on an agreed subject against the clock. Horace’s poem had the same title and was also published in The Examiner which was published a few weeks after Shelley’s.

Who was percy bysshe shelley?

Percy Shelley is a poet, dramatist, essayist and novelist.

Percy Shelley is a major English Romantic poet and is seen as a finer lyric and philosophical poet and was seen as more radical in his political social views.

Born on 4th August 1792 near Horsham in Sussex.

Father was a member of parliament.

Shelley was educated at Eton and Oxford University.

Began to read writers such as Tom Paine and William Godwin while in university.

In 1811 he was expelled from university for contributing to a pamphlet supporting atheism. The Necessity of Atheism—atheism being an outrageous idea in religiously conservative nineteenth-century England.

Shelley then eloped to Scotland with a 16-year-old named Harriet Westbrook. This resulted in a serious rift between his family. She was a daughter of a tavern keeper, whom he married despite his inherent dislike for the tavern.

Shelley had 2 children with Harriet but soon separated.

In 1813 Shelley published his first work: ‘Queen Mab’.

In 1814 he made the personal acquaintance of William Godwin in London, and promptly fell in love with Godwin’s daughter Mary Wollstonecraft.

The couple travelled together in Europe and Shelley then wrote poetry and Mary got the idea of her novel: ‘Frankenstein’.

In December 1816, Percy and Mary were married, a few weeks after Harriet had drowned herself.

Shelley had 3 children: Percy Florence Shelley, Clara Everina Shelley and William Shelley.

In 1818 Shelley took his family to Italy where they moved from city to city.

Two of Shelley’s children died leaving one child left (Percy Florence Shelley), and Mary suffered a breakdown. However, this was the most productive year for Shelley, writing: ‘Prometheus Unbound’ and ‘Adonais’, etc.

Clara Shelley survived 8 days after being born but died as she was born 2 months early. At 18 Mary gave birth to William which was when she was writing Frankenstein.

A year later Clara Everina was born, but unfortunately got dick as they travelled and died.

William then died 9 months later at 3 and half years old. Mary went into depression.

Then at 21 Mary gave birth to Percy Florence who survived for a normal lifespan.

In April 1822, The Shelley’s settled on the bay of Lerici on the North-Western Italian coast.

On the 8th of July, Shelley was returning from visiting his friends ‘Lord Byron’ and ‘James Leigh Hunt’ when his boat was overturned and was drowned.

He was cremated and buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

After his death Mary was left alone to look after Percy Florence Shelley. Percy’s grandfather offered financial support, but Mary instead decided to make a living off of writing, refusing the money. Fortunately, it worked.

Society & politics

In the dingier, less affluent areas of London, thievery, womanising, gambling, the existence of rookeries, and constant drinking was severe.

The population increased from just under a million in 1801 to one and a quarter million by 1820.

The young man wholeheartedly embraced the ideals of liberty and equality espoused by the French Revolution and devoted his considerable passion and persuasive power to convincing others of the rightness of his beliefs.

The French Revolution where the monarchy was overthrown.

In 1817 archaeologist had discovered fragments of a funeral statue of Ramesses II and intended to send the pieces to a British museum.

Religiously conservative nineteenth-century England. Which made Shelley stand out for speaking about atheism.

Shelley was born into a Second-class family, his father being a gentleman, therefore had an affluent life.

The young unmarried women were not allowed to appear in public without a chaperone.

In Shelley's time religion was severely significant. Children out of wedlock was shamed and divorce was frowned upon. Any dishonour or disrespect against God, would be looked down upon and shameful.

who is ozymandias?

Ozymandias was a Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth century BC.

Diodorus, writing in the first century BC, relayed Hecataeus’s description of the black-stone statue when it was standing complete in its temple in Thebes 300 years before. It was, said Hecataeus, the largest statue in Egypt; its foot alone was “more than seven cubits”, or ten and a half feet long. Diodorus, who had never seen it, straightforwardly called it “Ozymandias”, recorded the proclamation on the pedestal and said that this funerary temple “seems to exceed all others not only in the vast scale of its expense, but also in the genius of its builders.” It was not, however, ruined: the black stone contained “not a crack, not a flaw” in his day.

Some pages on, however, and much deeper into Egypt, a Mr. Banks had discovered an even bigger statue buried up to its shoulders in sand. Standing upon the tip of its ear, he could just reach to the middle of its forehead, from which he calculated that the length of the head was 12 feet (3.7 meters), and the height of the whole thing probably 84 feet, “far exceeding that of the supposed statue of the ‘King of Kings’.”