#OZYMANDIAS PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY FREE#

Shelley believed in atheism, vegetarianism and free love.Named “Mad Shelley” by his peers and was bullied at school.Inherited his father’s title and fortune.Shelley was one of the leading poets of the Romantic movement in England.The Tory newspaper, The Courier, celebrated his death with the text, “Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned, now he knows whether there is God or no.” Percy Bysshe Shelley summary: In Shelley’s pocket was a small book of Keats’ poetry (Keats was another young Romantic poet who died in Italy).īyron and other friends attended the funeral and burning of Shelley’s body on the beach. His body was washed up onshore and cremated on the beach, in keeping with quarantine regulations. On a fishing trip on 8th July 1822, near Livorno in Italy, Shelley was surprised by a sudden storm and drowned. He never felt comfortable in England after the suicide of his first wife, Harriet. While there, Mary began the story that would eventually become ‘Frankenstein’. The pair travelled through Europe to escape the gossip of society at home and settled for a time at Lake Geneva with Shelley’s friend, the poet Lord Byron. The pair eloped and later, after his first wife’s suicide, Shelley and Mary Godwin married. The Shelleysĭespite having a young wife and child, Shelley fell in love with the 16-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, the daughter of William Godwin and his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft (the campaigner for female emancipation). Shelley felt the need for social and political change and he believed in atheism, vegetarianism and free love. He began a degree course at Oxford but was expelled after less than a year and soon eloped with a young woman called Harriet Westbrook.ĭespite his upbringing, Shelley had unconventional political ideals and spent a great deal of time with reform thinkers of the day such as William Godwin, a well known philosopher. He stood to inherit both his father’s title and a fortune when his father died.īullied and unhappy at school, Shelley became known as ‘Mad Shelley’ by his fellow students. He had a comfortable and affluent upbringing in rural England, the eldest son of a baronet and Whig Member of Parliament.

Percy Shelley (1792 – 1822) was one of the leading poets of the Romantic movement in England.

Having heard of the British Museum’s recent acquisition of a huge statue of Ramses II, Shelley and his contemporaries decided to write poems about it.

Egyptian culture was exotified by Europeans, so much so that important historical treasures soon made their way to Europe.

Ozymandias was the Greek name of Ramses II.

They decided to have a competition to see who could write the best poem about this statue. Shelley and a friend learned of the acquisition by the British Museum of a massive statue of Ramses II. In the early 19th century, when Shelley was writing poetry, Europeans became fascinated with Egyptian culture after Napoleon conquered Egypt and began transporting the great treasures of the Ancient Egyptians back to Europe. ‘Ozymandias’ was the Greek name given to Ramses II, one of the greatest pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. This blog explores Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias poem, focussing on: Help GCSE English Literature students revise for the AQA English Literature Paper 2 exam with Beyond’s “revise” blogs on Power and Conflict poetry.

Ozymandias percy bysshe shelley