"Ozymandias" ( ) is the title of a

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

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 17928 July 1822) was 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 during his lifetime, but recognition of his achi ...

. Shelley wrote and published " Ozymandias" 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: even the greatest men and the empires they forge are impermanent, their legacies fated to decay into oblivion.

Writing and publication

Colossal_bust_of_Ramesses_II,_the_'Younger_Memnon'

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; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...

. 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, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

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 ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history '' Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which ...

, 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.Main, David M. (n.d.). Treasury of English Sonnets. Ed. from the Original Sources with Notes and Illustrations. ''The Examiner''. Shelley's poem appeared on 11 January 1818 and Smith's on 1 February 1818. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=VDIX7NHfyTAC&pg=PA328&dq=ozymandias+horace+smith+magazine&hl=en&ei=DS_PTK2uKoruuAOJgpUY&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=ozymandias%20horace%20smith%20magazine&f=false. 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".

Text

Horace Smith's "Ozymandias" In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows:— "I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone, "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,— Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon. We wonder — and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place.Horace Smith
Ozymandias (Smith)
at potw.org. 1 August 2013

References

{{Reflist 1818 poems Ancient Egypt in fiction Sonnets Ramesses II 1818 in England Historical poems

Writing and publication

Text

See also

References