Poet · 1792 – 1822

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Little-Known Facts

  • He was expelled from Oxford for co-writing a pamphlet defending atheism.
  • His Ozymandias was written in a friendly sonnet-writing contest with a friend.

Myths & Misconceptions

What is Ozymandias about?

Ozymandias describes the shattered statue of a forgotten ancient king, a meditation on how even the proudest power crumbles into dust over time.