Percy Shelly’s poem Ozymandias is about a statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great. His name has also been spelled by some scholars as Ramesses II. The poem is set up so Shelley is telling the story of a traveler who saw the statue in the deserts of Egypt. This poem shows a great deal of historical connection to Ramses II in the description of the statue and the landscape around it.
According to the notes at the bottom of the Norton Anthology, the largest statue in Egypt that Shelley’s poem is about had the inscription, “ I am Ozymandias, king of kings; if anyone wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass me in some of my exploits”(pg. 776). Since Ozymandias has been identified as Ramses II, I was able to look up some of the greatest things that he did according to historic records.
This is where the analysis of the poem comes in, because we can see from some of the descriptions given by the poem of the statue how the pharaoh was meant to be portrayed. Shelley says that the adventurer from Egypt said in the desert a, “Half sunk and shattered visage lies, whose frown/ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, / Tell that the sculptor well those passions read” (Shelley, 4-6). These lines say that the statue found in the desert gives the pharaoh it was designed after the image of being a cold and cruel man and that the sculptor caught those emotions well in the statue. This connects historically because we know that the statue is believed to be of Ramses II, who is well-known in history as being a self-absorbed and warrior king.
According to the article Ramesses II: Anatomy of a Pharaoh: The Military Leader by Jimmy Dunn on the website touregypt.net, there are many hieroglyphics and painting on the walls of tombs that show the cruelty of Ramses II and his father Seti I. According to Dunn, “On these walls we are, repeatedly, almost like the high budget advertisements of our modern society, treated to scenes of the king vanquishing the enemy and thus fulfilling his duty to defeat the forces of chaos and preserve ma ‘at…No one was better at this propaganda than Ramesses the Great, who always won his wars and always forced his enemies to grovel at his feet”(Dunn).
This article depicts Ramses II as a war hero of Egypt and a vicious conqueror of enemies, which would explain why he is depicted in a statue as such a fearful man. He would want to be respected for his strength as a warrior no doubt and would have wanted to look intimidating and remembered as powerful for years to come through his statues, hence having a cold and cruel face. (For more information about Dunn’s article, see link 1 below.)
There is another section of the poem that connects to not so much proven history, but biblical history. According to Shelley the statue in the poem has a scripture below it that says, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/ Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare” (Shelley 11-13). Now in class we talked about how this could be a message to the British Empire. I believe it was Ann who said it was a message like, “yeah England, our empire was great too and now look at it! You think you are so powerful? Let’s see you in a few centuries.” This is a good point, but I saw this more as a biblical and historical reference. Many people do believe that it was Ramses II who was the pharaoh during the time of Exodus in the Bible; the story of Moses freeing the slaves of Egypt. So much that he has been casted as the pharaoh in the story of Moses in the 1950’s film The Ten Commandments and the animated film The Prince of Egypt.
If what many scholars and religious people believe is true, then when the poem says “Nothing beside remains” (Shelley 12) could refer to the fall of Egypt after it lost all of its slaves. If could also refer to the mistakes Ramses was known to make with his desire to make himself remembers.
According to the article Ramses II and the Bible by Margaret Hunter on the website Amazing Bible Timeline with World History.com, Ramses was less than frugal with his projects. Hunter claims that Ramses II was, “seen as an incompetent leader. He took credit not due to him and consumed most of the wealth of Egypt in maintaining his name by building big projects during his reign. He scribed his name everywhere on the shrines and buildings in Egypt and even put his name on statues which were not his own” (Hunter). If this is true, then the lines “Look on my Works, ye Might, and despair!”(Shelley 11) would represent how Ramses II spent so much of his fortune on making monuments and statues to himself and after all of the money and work put into it, there is little to nothing left of his great empire except for shattered and broken ruins. Like the sunken in statue Shelley writes about. (For more information about biblical and real history of Ramses II, see link 2 below)
In this poem I see a lot of historical background as well as biblical references to the fall of Egypt that many believe happened under the reign of Ramses II. There are strong words used such as “despair”(Shelley 11) “decay”(Shelley 12) and “Wreck”(Shelley 13) that represent not only the destruction of the statue, but also the destruction and fall of the Egyptian empire that if was from.
Link 1-http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ramessesiimilitary.htm
Link 2 -http://amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/rameses-ii-and-the-bible/#sthash.pQxkm8XE.dpuf
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Guerrilla World Press 