Sonnet "Ozymandias" by P.B. Shelley

Thanks to its irony and the famous line "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!", the sonnet "Ozymandias" has become one of the most famous poems of the romantic era. It was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1817 and eventually became his most famous work. The poem describes the half-buried remains of the statue of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II and contrasts the proud words of the pharaoh with his ruined likeness. The main theme of "Ozymandias" is that any power is temporary and transitory, no matter how proud or tyrannical the ruler may be, and is achieved through a number of poetic techniques. The purpose of this study is to identify the features of the poetics of the sonnet "Ozymandias" by P.B. Shelley. This article presents the history of writing the sonnet and attempts to analyze the poetic techniques used in it. The analysis takes into account the peculiarities of literary and critical perception and understanding of the author's works and their translations in Russia. A hypothesis is described explaining the origin of the pseudonym Glirastes, under which Percy Shelley was hiding and under which the sonnet "Ozymandias" was first published in The Examiner newspaper on January 11, 1818. References to the sonnet "Ozymandias" in popular culture are given.