This episode received wide critical acclaim, and the connection to Shelley’s poem is made clear as Walter White’s drug empire continues to crumble in a fantastic and tragic manner. “Ozymandias” gained fame in the last few years for being the title of an episode of Breaking Bad, the critically acclaimed American drama series. The lone and level sands stretch far away.” “Ozymandias” and Breaking Bad Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,Īnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone If you haven’t read “Ozymandias,” here’s the brief sonnet in full: Though short, Shelley’s sonnet is a powerful reflection on the inevitable decline of manmade works and of humanity’s tendency toward false pretensions of enduring greatness. Smith’s poem uses the same title with a more traditional rhyme scheme, but it’s Shelley’s poem that continues to captivate audiences today. Shelley wrote “Ozymandias” during a friendly competition with friend and fellow poet Horace Smith. Ozymandias was the Greek name for the Egyptian Pharoah Ramesses II, whose statue had been recently acquired by the British Museum. This Percy Bysshe Shelley quote comes from his 1818 sonnet, “Ozymandias.” We recently wrote a brief biography of Mary Shelley, the young author of Frankenstein, and thought we’d continue our exploration of the famous Shelleys with some poignant words from her husband. Happy Words Wednesday! Today we’re looking at one of the most famous works by English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. If the statue unearthed at Heliopolis turns out to be him, it will not replace the frisson of gazing on a face whose “shattered visage” in Shelley’s poem displayed the Egyptian dictator’s “frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command”.Classic Literature Quotes Words Wednesday In antiquity, Ozymandias was the Greek name for Ramses II, who today lies in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, where he can be viewed up close and personal (closer than any of his subjects could have got) through a glass-topped case. Known as the Younger Memnon, the statue arrived in London in 1821, three years after Shelley published his poem in the Sunday newspaper The Examiner. Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” – which contains the line “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” – was written soon after the British Museum acquired one of two granite heads from Ramses’ mortuary temple in Thebes. There is no indication that the Israelites ever lived in Ancient Egypt and even the Sinai Peninsula shows almost no sign of any occupation for the entire second millennium BCE. After that fateful Agni Kai, Ozai makes a different call. On this reading, the Book of Exodus is simply a “charter myth” for Israel: the people were delivered from slavery by Yahweh and therefore belong to him by covenant. However, archaeological evidence does not support the historical authenticity of the Book of Exodus and the majority of modern biblical scholars believe it was given its final form long after the events it purports to describe. It used to be thought that the biblical Exodus took place during the reign of Ramses II. The young Ramses made a tactical error, leading to one of his divisions being destroyed, and while the Hittite army was ultimately forced to retreat, the Egyptians were unsuccessful in capturing Kadesh. Fought in 1274 BC against the Hittites, it is believed to have involved up to 6,000 charioteers. Ramses II’s most famous battle was at Kadesh, in present day Syria. His reign was marked by numerous military campaigns, most of them to take back territories lost to Egypt during the rule of previous pharaohs. Later Egyptians called him the “Great Ancestor”. Ramses II – also known as Ramses the Great – ruled for 66 years from 1279 to 1213 BCE. The discovery was made near the ruins of Ramses II’s temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis (whose surviving remnant is the obelisk of the Temple of Ra-Atum still standing in its original position in the eastern part of modern-day Cairo.)ĭestroyed in Greco-Roman times, the Temple of Ra-Atum was one of the largest in Egypt, almost double the size of Luxor’s Karnak, and dedicated to the cult of the sun god Atum, who came to be identified with Ra and then Horus. Archaeologists have found a statue buried in a Cairo slum that may depict the pharaoh Ramses II.
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