What does King of Kings mean in Ozymandias? Shelley was aware that the ancient Greek writer Diodorus Siculus had described a statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and had transcribed the inscription on its pedestal as “King of Kings am I, Ozymandias. Who is referred as I in the poem King of Kings? Many people are familiar with the name Ozymandias through the famous poem “Ozymandias,” written in 1818 by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (lived 1792 – 1822), but not everyone is aware that Ozymandias was actually a real ancient Egyptian pharaoh. The irony in the poem lies in the fact that the mighty ruler had the following words engraved on his statue “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings Look upon my works ye Mighty and despair!” These words conveyed he was so powerful that no other king could surpass him. Even the most ruthless dictators will one day die, and what they regarded as their eternal achievements will also eventually pass on. It is temporal, not eternal, no matter how powerful or fearsome a particular ruler may be. The main message of Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is that political power is not destined to last. The colossal monument to the apparently self-styled ‘King of Kings’ has shattered, illustrating the precarious, transitory nature of his power.
Ozymandias was the Greek name of Pharaoh Ramses II. Who created Ozymandias?Ī sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), written in 1817. It first appeared in book form in Shelley’s Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue with Other Poems (1819). Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote “Ozymandias” in 1817, and it was first published in the Examiner in 1818.
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