Shelley's "Ozymandias" Trivia Quiz

Answer: sonnet

Ozymandias is a sonnet, or a poem of 14 lines. It is written in loose iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABACDC EDEFEF.

Answer: Ramesses II

In 1817, the British Museum announced its acquisition of a sizeable fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the 13th century BC. Some scholars argue this may have inspired Shelley's poem, although he was also inspired by a passage in the writings of the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (Book 1, Chapter 47), where the historian writes about the monument "of the king known as Osymandyas." Ramesses II was the third pharaoh of Egypt's Nineteenth Dynasty and one of the mightiest pharaohs of the New Kingdom.

Answer: an antique

Shelley first published "Ozymandias" under the pseudonym of Glirastes. The name comes from the Latin glīs (dormouse) and the Greek erastēs (lover). The name is a pun on his love for his wife. Shelley was married to "Frankenstein" author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who was nicknamed the "doormouse."

Answer: trunkless

The statue of Ozymandias lies in ruins. The legs stand without a trunk, while "... Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk a shattered visage lies..." One of the themes of the poem is hubris and another is impermanence. Even the great Ozymandias, one of the most powerful pharaohs during Egypt's most powerful period, eventually falls to ruins.

"Ozymandias" was included in Shelley's 1819 collection "Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems."

Answer: He has a sneer of cold command

"Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things."

On July 1, 1822, Shelley set sail on the Don Juan and encountered a storm. The open boat was sunk, and Shelley's body washed ashore in Italy ten days later. A copy of John Keats's narrative poem "Lamia", nestled in Shelley's jacket pocket, helped to identify the body.

Answer: King of Kings

The title "King of Kings" was first used by Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I but is a title commonly used by Middle Eastern monarchs, similar to the title of emperor. In Judaism, the name came to be applied to God, and the New Testament frequently uses it in reference to Jesus.

Answer: despair

Ozymandias's empire has come to ruin. The poem is a reminder that no work of man lasts forever and a warning not to become too caught up in pride. If even someone as mighty as the King of Kings could see his monument end up buried in the sand, how can the reader expect to make a permanent mark on the world?

An 1817 copy draft of Shelley's poem is housed in Oxford's Bodleian Library.

Answer: lone and level

Shelley uses a lot of alliteration in these lines: "boundless and bare," "lone and level," and "sands stretch."

The Sisters of Mercy use this "lone and level" phrase in the songs "This Corrosion" and "Dominion."

Answer: Horace Smith

Horace Smith was a friend who helped manage Shelley's finances, and he was also a poet himself. His poem on Ozymandias began:

"IN Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desart knows:-
'I am great OZYMANDIAS,' saith the stone... "

The poems are on the same topic, share the same title, and are both sonnets. In addition to poetry, Smith wrote a number of historical novels, including "Brambletye House", "Zillah", and "Walter Colyton".

Answer: The Examiner

"The Examiner" was a Sunday paper on, as the editors described it, "politics, domestic economy, and theatricals." In addition to these topics, the paper also published poetry by the respected writers of the day, among them Shelley, Keats, and Byron.

Both Shelley and Horace Smith submitted their sonnets on Ozymandias to "The Examiner", and both were published, Shelley's first in the January 11, 1818 issue of the paper, and Smith's later on February 1, 1818.