He was entrenched in a very life-like dream of his “Sweet”. Shelley’s poem begins with the speaker waking from a dream and feeling the peace of the moment in which he is in.

The events of the text are rather straightforward. ‘The Indian Serenade’ is a dreamlike lyrical love poem told from the perspective of a desperate lover. There is no clear context to allow one to say for certain one way or another. That being said, the first person narrator in ‘The Question’ is not necessarily the poet himself. He and his wife, Mary Shelley, lost all three of their children and he might’ve chosen to craft the dream world in ‘The Question’ (filled with innumerable flowers) as kind of retreat. Shelley’s later years were especially tragic. It is interesting to consider when reading this poem where Shelley was in his life at the time he composed the words. ‘The Question’ tells of a dream in which a speaker encountered a vast forest of pristine, blooming flowers. He attributes the cause of Keats’ death to the literary elite who did not react well to what is considered by some to be Keats’ masterpiece, ‘Endymion’. His untimely death was caused by a boar, but Shelley takes the principle and tragedy of youthful death and applies it to his friend. As a representative of Keats’ youth and beauty, Adonais also died young. Keats had recently died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-six. The poem was written with Shelley’s friend, and fellow poet, John Keats in mind. In this poem Shelley utilizes his knowledge of Greek mythology, and love for its stories, to mourn the death of the mystical figure Adonais. Eventually he tries to look more objectively at his situation and remind himself that time passes and this moment, if not enjoyed will go to waste just like all the others he took for granted. He feels as if the world does not care for him- he is a man alone. This leads him into a dark place he can’t get out of. He lists all the things he does not have but wishes he did. Instead he meditates on his own depression. His emotions begin to play a larger part in the narrative as he is not enlivened by the sights he sees. Through a varsity of vibrant images, Shelley’s speaker describes and relays what he sees. Shelley chose to utilize the verse structure made popular by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queen. ‘ Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples’ describes the feelings of alienation a speaker suffers from and how he attempts to sooth his pain with nature. Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples The history of this pharaoh, and the acquisition by the British Museum of a segment of a statue of the king, are thought to have inspired Shelley to write the poem. It refers to the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II. Historically, the source of the name Ozymandias is also interesting. The poem was published in 1818 and published the same year in The Examiner of London. Any great cities or monument the king built have fallen. But, considering the other details that have already been provided to the reader, it is clear that none of these works have survived. The statue has a powerful messaged emblazoned on it saying “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair”. This famous piece of poetry describes a ruined statue of a king in an empty desert. In early 1818 Shelley and his wife left England and Shelley produced the majority of his most well-known works including, P rometheus Unbound.It was in 1822, not long before he was meant to turn 30, Shelley was drowned in a storm while sailing in his schooner on the way to La Spezia, Italy. In 1816 Percy Bysshe Shelley’s first wife Harriet committed suicide and Mary and Percy were official wed. Soon after this Mary and Percy met Lord Byron, or George Gordon, it was through one of their meetings that Mary was inspired to write Frankenstein. Mary became pregnant with her and Shelley’s first child soon after and Harriet sued Shelley for divorce. Shelley had two children with Harriet but before their second was born he left her for the future author of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, Mary Godwin. It was at this time that Shelley began writing his long form poetry for which he is best known. Soon after this he eloped with a 16-year-old woman, Harriet Westbrook, of whom he soon tired. While in school Shelley was well known for his liberal views and was once chastised for writing a pamphlet titled, The Necessity of Atheism. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in 1792 in Broadbridge Heath, England.

Ozymandias and gilgamesh