Shelley On The Futility of Power

Do This First (Daily Motivational Podcast)

Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the iconic, and polarizing figures of the Romantic period in English literature, is renowned for his visionary poetry and radical ideas. His early years were marked by a passion for literature and a defining defiant demeanor that in some respects was admirable and in others was ill advised. He found some respite and refuge in his writing from a young age.

His life was marked with scandal and controversy leading to a decline in status and wealth. His wife Mary became an author of note as the creator of Frankenstein. Despite, Percy Shelley's lapse of judgement and challenges, he remained a tireless advocate for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the rights of the oppressed, and he used his platform as a poet to challenge the injustices of his time.

In this podcast episode, we'll take a closer look at the themes of power in Shelley's Ozymandias poem from a scientific, philosophical and history-focused perspective, and the valuable lessons the text offers.

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Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.