"Ozymandias" ( ) is the title of a

sonnet A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...

published in 1818 by Horace Smith (1779–1849). Smith wrote the poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...

. Shelley wrote and published "

Ozymandias "Ozymandias" ( ) is a sonnet written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. It was first published in the 11 January 1818 issue of '' The Examiner'' of London. The poem was included the following year in Shelley's collection '' Ros ...

" in 1818. Smith's poem was published in ''The Examiner'' three weeks after Shelley's, on February 1, 1818. It explores the fate of history and the ravages of time.

Writing and publication

The banker and political writer Horace Smith spent the Christmas season of 1817–1818 with Percy Bysshe Shelley and

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ( , ; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of science fiction# ...

. At this time, members of the Shelleys' literary circle would sometimes challenge each other to write competing sonnets on a common subject: Shelley,

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

, and

Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centre ...

wrote competing sonnets about the Nile around the same time. Shelley and Smith both chose a passage from the writings of the Greek historian

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...

, which described a massive Egyptian statue and quoted its inscription: "King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work." Smith's poem was published, along with a note signed with the initials H.S., on 1 February 1818. It takes the same subject, tells the same story, and makes a similar moral point, but one related more directly to modernity, ending by imagining a hunter of the future looking in wonder on the ruins of a forgotten London. It was originally published under the same title as Shelley's verse, but in later collections, Smith retitled it "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below".

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{{Reflist 1818 poems Works set in ancient Egypt Sonnets Ramesses II 1818 in England Historical poems

Writing and publication

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