ADONAIS – SHELLEY

ADONAIS – SHELLEY

·         Shelley wrote this long poem as an elegy for Shelley’s close friend and fellow poet John Keats, who died in Rome of Tuberculosis at the age of 26.

·         The poem begins in dejection, but ends in optimism.

·         He hopes that Keats’s works will rejuvenate the future poets and inspires revolutionary change throughout Europe.

·         There are 55 stanzas with 495 lines.

·         Shelley was introduced to keats in Hampstead towards the end of 1816 by their mutual friend Leigh Hunt.

·         Byron, Moore, Shelley & Leigh Hunt mourn for their death.

·         Like Chatterton, Sidney & Lucan, Keats also died at young age.

·         Most critics suggest that Shelley used Virgil’s Tenth Eclogue, in praise of Cornelius Gallus as a model.

·         Shelley is called as “mad Shelley”.

·         Browning calls Shelley as “sun-treador”.

·         William Godwin’s ideas greatly influenced  Shelley.

·         In Greek Adonais is a god of fertility.

·         In Hebrew Adonai means ‘Lord’.

·         Adonis, a beautiful young man, was killed by boar.

·         The death of Adonais is celebrated in the city of Athens.

·         Aprhodite, Goddesss of Love, fell in love with Adonais.

·         Zeus is the chief of God.

·         Zeus allowed Adonais to spend 6 months with Aphrodite.

·         The original spelling of Adonais is Adonis.

·         But in Shelley’s poem Keats is as Adonais was killed by the literary criticism from London’s Quarterly Review who gave a scathing review of Keats’s poem “Endymion”.

·         But indeed Shelley was unaware of the true cause of Keats’s death.

·         Urania/venus/Aphrodite is Adonis’ lover in the myth, who is rewritten here as the young man’s mother.

·         Keats died at Rome on 23 February 1821.

·         Shelley makes use of two Greek poems. 1. Elegy of Adonais by Bion.   2. Elegy of Bion by Machus.

·         The poem is written in the pastoral tradition of Theocritus.

·         The poem has two parts. From the 1-37 stanzas deal with the lamentation at the premature death of keats.  38 – 55 stanzas express joy because after the death, individual soul unites with external universal soul or consolation.

·         Shelley views that Death is a gateway for the union of soul with divinity.

·         Soul is like boat, sailing away to mysterious destination.

·         Urania is the most musical of mourners, poet is one among them.

·         Byron and Moor are the first 2 mourners among the contemporary poets.

·         Shelley is the least distinguished mourner.

·         Contemporary poets in the guides of Mountain Shepherds attended Adonais.

·         Leigh Hunt is the one of the sincerest of keats friend.

·         Last 17 stanzas is the best portion of the poem.

·         Life is like a dome of many coloured glass, these colours of Maya not allow man to see eternal beauty. It is only death shatters these coloured glass and enables soul to see god.

·         The spirits of the dead poets live in thoughts of young readers.

·         Shelley compares the great poets to stars of the sky.

·         Shelley calls keats “the pilgrim of eternity”.