'Ozymandias,' or De Casibus Lord Byron: Literary Celebrity on the Rocks.

Though rarely discussed in such terms, 'Ozymandias' represents a monumental moment in the so-called Shelley-Byron 'debate' or 'conversation.' Noting the failure of source studies to account convincingly for the origins of the facial features of Ozymandias, this paper argues that the pharaoh's 'frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command' are suspiciously Byronic, evoking the physiognomy of the Byronic hero and of Byron himself as portrayed in the widely circulated portrait of 1814-15 by George Henry Harlow. In other words, this paper argues that Ozymandias is a portrait - or rather a word-bust - of that early-nineteenth-century literary colossus known as 'Byron.' By depicting that colossus decapitated and in ruins, Shelley, who felt dwarfed by the genius and celebrity of Byron, prophesies the day when the sun would finally set on the literary empire of the poet whom he despaired of rivaling. Long a routine stop on the grand tour of British Romantic literature, 'Ozymandias' now asks to be revisited as a de casibus poem - i.e. a poem 'on the falls' of the mighty - that does not merely warn despots about the vanity of their pride and ambition but that also lectures Lord Byron on the vanity of his literary celebrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]