Travelers from an Antique Land: Shelley's Inspiration for "Ozymandias" (Critical Essay‪)‬

An enduring myth about artists of all kinds is that work arises from personal physical experience. A case in point is Shelley's great political sonnet "Ozymandias," which is conventionally presumed to have been "inspired" by an ancient Egyptian sculpture. Shelley never traveled to Egypt and thus certainly never saw the landscape he describes in his sonnet. Contrary to popular belief, moreover, he likewise never saw the sculptured head allegedly described in the sonnet, which did not arrive in England until a day or two after he and his family had moved permanently to Italy and more than six months after he had published the poem. All the sources and influences visible in the poem were entirely literary and all were part of the common currency of the era. Apart from Diodorus Siculus and the political sonnets of Milton and Wordsworth, they include several classics of travel literature in English and French, most notably the work of Volney. **********