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Jameson Deshazer
English 498
Professor J. Black
15 March 2015

Ozymandias by Percy Shelley:

Poetrys Hero or Villain?

Over the past couple of centuries there has been a long debate on the significance and
influence of Shelleys poem Ozymandias. I wrote about the significance of his poem earlier on
in my academic studies, around my sophomore year, and now some years later, I am again asked
to write about this unique and influential poem. No surprise that I naturally went back to my
original train of thought on the poem, asking myself, what is the significance of this poem and
why would it matter to others in my field? Unfortunately, I had no answer for the second part of
the previous question.
This was simply because I had overlooked a key factor in the requirements for writing
this second paper about Shelleys work. The point that I had overlooked was: how can my paper
contribute to the ongoing debate of the significance or influence of Shelleys work? It was this
question that prompted a sudden change in my direction and desired outcome for this paper. I felt
that my previous paper on the significance of Ozymandias was good; however, to me it lacked
the weight requirement for this current paper. The driving question that I will present and
hopefully explain clearly is: would Shelleys poem Ozymandias be viewed differently in the
academic world had Shelley not produced it such a manner that largely represented the physical

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characteristics and influence of his close friend and colleague Lord Byron? Or was his literary
fame on account of his own accord and efforts?
Through the course of this paper I will be examining the imagery within the poem
"Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley. In looking closer at the imagery used by Shelley, I will attempt
to show the historical inconsistencies of the descriptions of the late King Ramses II for whom the
title of the poem is suppose to be derived from. Many scholars tend to view this poem as
reflective of the Kings accomplishments and how he treated his subjects during his reign. I will
hope to discredit this idea and substitute it with the more accurate belief of, this poem directly
points to Shelly's personal envy of the fame and academic status of his colleague Lord Byron
Also during the discussion of this literary analysis I hope to show that although Shelleys
work is in itself excellent, it should be viewed in a slightly different context today. This being
primarily for reason that had his poem not reflected the controversial imagery of his then already
famous colleague Lord Byron: would we still consider it to be an original work of Percy Shelley?
Many scholars have already hinted at the fact that the imagery which Shelley describes in his
poem about the late King Ramses II (Ozymandias) is not historically or accurately representative
of this former King of Egypt. The facial descriptions articulated by Shelley in his work are
however, uncannily similar to that of the notorious Lord Byron as you will see throughout this
paper. For those readers who arent familiar with early 19th century British poetry, this poem
Ozymandias was composed by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1817 supposedly about the late King
Ramses II who often was referred to by the surname Ozymandias.
Upon my investigation into the question of influential evidence held within this poem, I
came across an article by Hadley J. Mozer titled Ozymandias or De Casibus Lord Byron:

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Literary Celebrity on the Rocks. Mozer sets the stage for his argument saying that his article
represents a monumental moment in what Charles E. Robinson and William D. Brewer have
styled, respectively, the Shelley-Byron debate or conversation(727) Mozer goes on to write
that Shelleys poem is actually a word-bust or veiled portrait of the early-nineteenthcentury literary colossus known as Bryon. I see this poem as more of an Academic Dig by
Shelley directed at Byron and his accomplishments.
So how influential was Lord Byron in Shelleys life and literary work? Mozer points out
that his evidence comes from letters written by Shelley himself to other colleagues, specifically
the letter he wrote to Thomas Love Peacock in July of 1816, which mind you, was a year before
he wrote the poem Ozymandias. Shelley writes:
Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person, & as such, is not to be regretted that he
is a slave to the vilest & most vulgar prejudices, & as mad as the wind? I see reason to regret
the union of great genius, & things which make geniuses useless. For a short time I shall see no
more of Lord Byron, a circumstance I cannot avoid regretting as he has shewn me great
kindness, & as I had some hope that an intercourse with me would operate to weaken those
superstitions of rank & wealth & revenge & servility to opinion with which he, in common with
other men, is so poisonously imbued. (728)

One of the texts which Charles E Robinson and William D. Brewer analyze in what they
call the Shelley-Byron debate is Shelleys Julian and Maddalo (1819) According to Brewer
and Robinson the character Julian is suppose to represent Shelley himself and Count
Maddalo is suppose to be Byron. Mozer points to the preface of Shelleys text, where Shelley
writes about Maddalo and his flaws as seen by Julian:
He is a person of the most consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his
energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it is his
weakness to be proud: he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the
dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life

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His ambition preys upon itself I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other
word to express the concentrated and impatient feelings which consume him (729)

This passage just seems exemplify the biblical metaphor mentioned in the book of
Proverbs where it says, Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall
(16:18). To me this is apparent in the poem on lines 3-4, when Shelley writes Near them on
the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies (Shelley, Ozymandias 181) Could this be said to
really imply his criticism about or directed at Lord Byron? I believe so, which leads me into the
next question: what was Shelleys inspiration for writing this poem?
The key aspect that has now been determined to be False is that of the inspiration for the
composing of the poem in the first place. Originally Richard Holmes, in his autobiographical
works on Shelleys life said that Shelley and Horace Smith, who was Shelleys competition for
writing the sonnet, saw the bust of Ramses II on a trip to the British Museum in the autumn of
1817. However, as Mozer goes to show in his paper, this is not the truth. Mozer says that it was
a man named Toby Venables who proved that the bust had been delayed in its arrival to England
until the spring of 1818, which was after the sonnet was published in Leigh Hunts Examiner
under an apparently false name in January of that same year (728).
Now obviously I understand that events can be misreported or recorded with errors,
especially given the time in which the circumstance supposedly occurred. In the early 19th
century the methods of writing and recording were nowhere near the sophistication of that in
todays world. Another thing to keep in mind is that discrepancy of when Shelley could have or
not have seen the Egyptian artifact occurs within a span of less than six months. Even if Shelley
had seen the stone artifact and used it for his inspirations, the fact of the facial features which he

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uses to describe the statues bust are simply not an accurate representation of what Egyptian art
has exemplified through the ages.
The next source I would like to bring into this papers discussion is that by a man named
Walter Stephens, who wrote Ozymandias: Or Writings, Lost Libraries and Wonder. His article
was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in December of 2009. The key ingredient that
Stephenss article ads to the mix for the purposes of this paper, is that of the historical accounts
of Ramses II known facial descriptions. In Stephens accounts of the writings and recordings of
Diodorus Siculus, who is the oldest known person to have seen the flawless statue erect,
Stephens says that Diodorus wrote the face had a stoic, emotionless expression. This account
seems very likely to be true, as my own studies of ancient Egypt also concur with the fact that
Egyptians were never portrayed in history with any significant or emotional facial expressions.
Stephens also backs up the fact that Shelley departed England two months prior to the Ramses
artifact being received by the British Museum. Shelley died in Italy and would never have seen
the bust with his own eyes. So, what inspired Shelley to write this poem? If the face Shelley
describes so richly in his poem is not an accurate representation of Ozymandias the King of
Kings, then whose face is it? Who is known and recorded by historians to share those same
facial expressions?
To answer this question let us briefly go back to the article written by Mozer, where he
states that, By the time Shelley was writing Ozymandias, the production and reproduction of
Byrons image had been in high gear for several years, and Byron had satsometimes on his
own initiative and sometimes at the request of othersto numerous painters and one famous
sculptor to produce images of himself for both private and public consumption(736) To add to
this conversation of Byrons known facial depictions, Mozer also says that a renowned Danish

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sculptor by the name of Bertel Thorvaldsen sculpted a bust of Byron sometime in the spring of
1817 at the request of Byrons friend John Cam Hobhouse (738)
In a letter from Thorvaldsen to Hobhouse he writes that Byron appeared the first day in
his atelier without any previous notice, wrapped up in his mantle, and with a look which was
intended to impress upon the artist a powerful sentiment of his character(737). Thorvaldsen
goes on to further tell his friend about his experience of sculpting Bryon in Rome when he states
to his friend Hans Christian Andersen;
Oh that was in Rome, when I was about to make Bryons statue; he placed himself just
opposite to me, and began immediately to assume quite another countenance to what was
customary to him. Will you not sit? said I; but you must not make these faces. It is my
expression, said Byron Indeed? said I, and then I made him as I wished, and everybody said,
when it was finished that I had hit the likeness. When Byron, however, saw it, he said, It does
not resemble me at all; I look more unhappy. He was, above all things, so desirous of looking
extremely unhappy, added Thorvaldsen, with a comic expression.(Andersen 170)

It seems that Byron enjoyed displaying these unhappy demeanors in most if not all of the
art or portraits made of him during that time. Based on the evidence thus far it is becoming
increasingly clear that the wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command (lines 3-4) do suspiciously
resemble none other than that of Byron himself. The issue that I keep coming back to is best
summed up by John Keats a fellow poet and colleague of Shelleys. Keats says in his five axioms
of poetry, It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts. . . and that if
poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.(1817)
To me Shelleys poem Ozymandias is neither a wording of his own thoughts/influences
or having come to him as natural as leaves to a tree. So not only does this poem not seem to
originate from Shelleys own imaginative creativity, it also disgraces the name and
accomplishments of one of Egypts most revered Kings! What seems even worse yet is; as

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Stephens writes in his article, What happens when writing destroys writing? Shelleys poem all
but erased the memory of Ozymandias as the founder of libraries.(164)
In closing, the lack of credibility presented about Shelleys original inspiration for writing
this poem to his lack of historical accuracy of descriptions of the King for whom he supposedly
wrote about in Ozymandias, simply detracts from the level of influence that I once thought his
work had. The main reason for my credibility issue with this piece of poetry is based around the
lack of historical accuracy that Shelley employs in his poetic writings. I believe that any author
writing about a historical icon (such as King Ramses II), has a degree of responsibility to their
readers to report or record only the most accurate depictions of that person to their readers or
audience. You might ask yourself, well what if the author is reporting what they know to be true.
I would answer that question with: maybe the author is being honest in his or her work, or
adversely maybe the author did not research the person about whom they are writing to the best
of his or her abilities? Nonetheless, when any author fails to provide his readers with the most
honest translation of past events, people, or places (unless within the parameters of the Fiction
genre of course) possible they are doing their audience a disservice, at least in my opinion that is.
Like I said at the beginning, his work is splendid in certain aspects, maybe even enough
to qualify him as one of poetrys most creative Heros? Or does Shelleys lack of accurate
representation of one of Egypts most revered Kings make him a Villain of Poetry? My only
hope is that the evidence which I have supplied to you in this article is clear enough to allow you
to come to your own conclusion on the amount of significance that Shelleys poetry may or may
not have in the world of Poetry and Literature up until this point.

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Works Cited
Holmes, Richard. Shelley: The Pursuit. New York: E.P Dutton, 1975. Print.
Cline, C L. Byron, Shelley, and their Pisan Circle. Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press,
1952. print.
Jeaffeson, John Cordy. The Real Shelley, New Views of a Poets Life. London,UK:
Hurst&Blackett, 1885. print.
Notopoulos, James A. The Platonism of Shelley: A Study of Platonism and the Poetic Mind.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1949. print.
Andersen, Hans Christian. "The True Story of My Life: A Sketch." London: Longman, Brown,
Green, and Longmans, 1847. web document.
Keats, John. "Keat's Letters." On Axioms and the Suprise of Poetry (1817). document.
Mozer, Hadley J. ""Ozymandias" or De Casibus Lord Byron: Literary Celebrity on the Rocks."
European Romantic Review Vol. 26. (2010): 727-749. Document.

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Sng, Zachary. "The Construction of Lyric Subjectivity in Shelly's "Ozymandias"." Studies in
Romanticism Vol. 37. (1998): 217-233. Document.
Stephens, Walter. "Ozymandias: Or, Writing, Lost Libraries, and Wonder." MLN Vol. 124.
(2009): 155-168. Document.
Venables, Toby. "The Lost Traveller." Keats-Shelley Review (2001): 15-21. print.