Ozymandias of Egypt Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on 4th August 1792. He is considered to be one of the major English Romantic poets. He was not famous in his own time but is known to have influenced the work of later poets such as Robert Browning, Thomas Hardy and W.B. Yeats.

He also wrote prose fiction and essays on political and philosophical issues most of which were not published in his lifetime due to the risk of prosecution for political and religious libel. He was expelled from Oxford in 1811 after refusing to admit to co-authorship of an essay called 'The Necessity of Atheism' which was sent to local bishops and the heads of the Oxford colleges.

Shelley seems to have spent most of his life moving from place to place in England and Europe to avoid being arrested for his writing, or due to bad relationships.

He eloped with, and later married, Harriet Westbrook. After the marriage broke down, he eloped again with Mary Godwin, the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Westmacott, a feminist author. After the suicide of Harriet Shelley, he married Mary Godwin.

In 1816 the couple went to Geneva in Switzerland where they happened to meet Lord Byron. During a spell of bad weather they amused themselves by writing ghost stories. Afterwards 16 years old Mary Shelley had a nightmare in which she created Frankenstein. The book was actually published in 1818 when she was 21.

In July 1822 Shelley and two friends sailed out of Livorno in Italy on a vessel called 'Don Juan'. There was a bad storm and they all drowned. Mary Shelley allegedly kept Shelley's heart on her writing desk until she died.

"Ozymandias" was written in 1817 as part of a poetry contest with a friend. It was published in 'The Examiner' in 1818 under the pen name Glirastes. Ozymandias is an alternative name for the pharaoh Rameses II. The crumbling statue is meant to indicate the transience of political power and praise the ability of art to preserve the past.