It could be Macchu Pichu, the Aztecs, the Incas, the Mayans, the Hun… the fact that Egypt is not mentioned specifically is important, because it means it’s also another level of vague old mystery. Still, it adds another little shot of mystery right in there, with the vagueness of the place. The “antique land” is a little ambiguous, as is the title, but you don’t have to be an Egyptologist to know that Egypt is the place in question. was born in) the antique land, since that just sounds more marvellously mysterious.

he was born there?) or a traveller who’s come back from the “antique land”? For me, I like to think that he’s a traveller that came from (i.e. Is the traveller FROM the antique land (i.e. The first line of the poem gives us a bit of context: the traveller is from “an antique land” – it’s still a little ambiguous though. In this post, I’m focusing on the language, ideas and views expressed in the poem. Shelley would feel no hesitation at all in writing a poem directly criticising Mad King George, believe me! To recap: Ozymandias is a sonnet, but please don’t try to link it to love rather link it to the sonnet traditions of John Milton if you must the poem isn’t about a particular statue being brought to England, more the phenomenon of Egyptology which was particularly popular at the time Shelley was writing the poem could be a critique of King George III among others, but it’s not specifically about him. I also looked a little at the sonnet form. In the last post, I had a look at some of the myths, fallacies and truths around the context of Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, to help GCSE English Literature candidates for AQA make sense of what’s out there.

Shelley sonnets