Adonais - An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

This book contains a 1821 pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, on the death of John Keats. It is widely regarded as amongst Shelley's most accomplished and well-known works, and is highly recommended for all poetry-lovers. Shelley's poetry is infused with his belief in the power of human love, and his faith in the perpetual improvement and ultimate progress of human kind. His lyric poems, for which he is famous, are exquisite in their beauty, profundity, and masterful composure. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822) was an important English Romantic poet who is widely regarded as one of the finest lyric poets in the English Language. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Jun 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473375932

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was an English Romantic poet. Born into a prominent political family, Shelley enjoyed a quiet and happy childhood in West Sussex, developing a passion for nature and literature at a young age. He struggled in school, however, and was known by his colleagues at Eton College and University College, Oxford as an outsider and eccentric who spent more time acquainting himself with radical politics and the occult than with the requirements of academia. During his time at Oxford, he began his literary career in earnest, publishing Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810) and St. Irvine; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (1811) In 1811, he married Harriet Westbrook, with whom he lived an itinerant lifestyle while pursuing affairs with other women. Through the poet Robert Southey, he fell under the influence of political philosopher William Godwin, whose daughter Mary soon fell in love with the precocious young poet. In the summer of 1814, Shelley eloped to France with Mary and her stepsister Claire Claremont, travelling to Holland, Germany, and Switzerland before returning to England in the fall. Desperately broke, Shelley struggled to provide for Mary through several pregnancies while balancing his financial obligations to Godwin, Harriet, and his own father. In 1816, Percy and Mary accepted an invitation to join Claremont and Lord Byron in Europe, spending a summer in Switzerland at a house on Lake Geneva. In 1818, following several years of unhappy life in England, the Shelleys—now married—moved to Italy, where Percy worked on The Masque of Anarchy (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Adonais (1821), now considered some of his most important works. In July of 1822, Shelley set sail on the Don Juan and was lost in a storm only hours later. His death at the age of 29 was met with despair and contempt throughout England and Europe, and he is now considered a leading poet and radical thinker of the Romantic era.

Book preview

Adonais -

An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

by

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Horsham, Sussex, England in 1792. He studied at University College, Oxford, but his atheistic views got him expelled. Estranged from his father, he left home and began to take trips to London to spend time with famous journalist William Godwin. It was here, around the time that he published Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem (1813), that Shelley met the Godwin’s daughter, Mary, quickly striking up a romantic relationship with her. In 1814, the two of them eloped to Switzerland, where they spent time with Lord Byron, and where the young Mary Shelley found the inspiration for her future masterpiece, Frankenstein (1818).

In 1815, the Shelleys moved back to London, where the two of them continued to write. Percy was a prolific producer of literature, and many of the verse works he

Reviews for Adonais - An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

[fledgist · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shelley's elegy on the death of Keats. A remarkable poem, perhaps one of the greatest elegies ever written in English. "Mour not for Adonaïs thou young dawn."