Introduction

The poem I am going to analyze is Adonais from Percy Bysshe Shelley. I have chosen this poem because it is the Union of two Romantic poets: Shelley and John Keats as it was written by Shelley after Keats’s death.

I have taken an extract of the poem of just 54 verses from the almost 500 verses that it is formed of, because otherwise it would have been too long and it would have taken too much time to present it in class.

Analysis

Adonais was published in 1821 just after Keats death, who died in Rome at the tender age of 25, so the poem was subtitled “An Elegy on the Death of John Keats…” He was defined by Shelley in his Preface as “to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age”.

Adonais comes from Adonis, the mythological character who was eternally young and who symbolizes death and the renovation of nature. He was the beautiful youth loved by Venus and killed by a wild boar.

Adonais (extract)[1]

I weep for Adonais - he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,
Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

O, weep for Adonais - he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend; -oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania! - He died,
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride,
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite
Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished -
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last
, The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies -the storm is overpast.

The poem is formed by nine verses in each stanza and the rime is ababbcbcc.

It is full of rhetorical questions and it refers to a second singular person, mainly talking to nature, so there is a big presence of “thy” and “thou”. There is also a third singular person referring to Adonais, who represents John Keats, but he has added an “a” as it comes from Adonis.

He refers continually to nature being elements like “flower” “sun” “bloom” “petals”, etc. The death is continually present and repeats “he is dead” “he lay” “he perished” “he went into the gulf of death” and also the sorrow that it provokes “I weep” “our tears” “our despair” “lament”.

In the first stanza, Shelley cries for Keats’s death. But, although he cries, he can’t fight against death. His tears can’t “thaw the frost which binds so dear a head”. Here, he uses the image of frost to make reference to the immutability of death. The irrevocability of death is reinforced by its personification, calling it “sad hour” and the self death saying “with me died Adonais”. He says that we should not forget Keats because his “fate and fame” should be eternal “an echo and a light unto eternity”.

In the second stanza, he appeals to Nature “mighty Mother” to ask her why she permitted him to die. “Where wert thou (…) when thy Son lay?” He compares death with the “shaft which flies in darkness”, the one which pierce us and kill us. He also makes an appealing to Urania (in Greek mythology, the muse of Astrology and Astronomy and also the name given to Venus). She did nothing to prevent Keats’s death. It was then written in his destiny.

He refers also to Keats’s youth “with soft enamoured breath”. The last three verses of this paragraph make reference to Keats’s poetry and the fact that he knew he was going to die as he had tuberculosis. “He adorned and hid the coming bulk of death”.

In the third stanza, he cries again for the death and tells nature to do it too. “Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and week”. He asks her again the reasons to let him die and tells her to die too as the death of Adonais is parallel to the death of nature. “Let thy loud heart keep, like this, a mute and uncomplaining sleep”. He says that he is gone into paradise “where all things wise and fair descend”. He dreams that he returns to be alive “oh, dream not that the amorous Deep will yet restore him to the vital air”, but he realizes that he is already gone and it would be impossible because death will never permit it. “Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair”.

In the fourth stanza, he tells “the most musical of mourners” to cry. I am not sure who he refers to, but I would say it is death. He tells Urania to lament again because Keats died. He tells that God “the Sire of an immortal strain” permitted him to die, one of “his country’s pride” asking why death attacks to everyone “the priest, the slave and the liberticide” by the same rite if there are people who merit it more than other. But “his clear Sprite yet reigns o’er earth” giving an indication of immortality. He went “unterrified”, giving and expectation of future hope. With “the third among the sons of light” he could refer to Keats after to earlier big poets, although, according to the University of Toronto web site, In A Defence of Poetry (also written in 1821) Shelley defines an epic poet and calls Homer the first, Dante the second, and Milton the third. The numbering seems to be merely chronological.

In the fifth stanza, he repeats again to the “most musical of mourners” to cry. He says that not everyone knows that death is coming, and Keats who knew it, “dared to climb” from the deep and fight against his disease. And those who knew that “their tapers yet burn through that night of time” are happier because they could be ready to die. He calls death “night of time, in which suns perished”. Later, he makes reference to the “envious” critics that criticised Keats’s early works. Other poets are still alive and have the opportunity to tread the “thorny road which leads, through toil and hate, to fame’s serene abode”. Keats will never have that opportunity again.

In the sixth stanza, he talks about the youngest son of nature, who has died “thy youngest, dearest one has perished”. With “the nursling of thy widowhood” he makes reference to Keat’s works and compares them with a flower grown “by some sad maiden cherished”. Here, an influence of nature elements. He had lots of things to offer us because he died so young and couldn’t have a long work “died on the promise of the fruit”. Percy hoped him to be a great poet, but his “petals nipped before they blew”. His work is finished because he lies: “the storm is overpast”. Shelley also believed that the poet died because of the harsh and negative reviews of his poetry.

Conclusion

It is a beautiful work, and one of which Shelley was justly proud. Most critics consider it one of his finest works. In general, the poem is of lamentation because Keats is dead; he was too young and it was a sad lost for Shelley, but he talks also about his production and celebrates it. He makes reference continually to extra linguistic elements like mythology or other English poets so it was hard for me to understand, because you must first know those elements to later analyse it.

Bibliography

• BBC. 24^th November 2006

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/shelley_adonais.shtml

· English Literature Essays. J V Ward. “The Constant Theme of Death in the works of Keats and Shelley.” Written on 14^th August 2003. 24^th November 2006.

http://www.english-literature-essays.com/keats_and_shelley.htm

Academic year 2006/2007
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Sandra Gisbert Sánchez
sangis@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press

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[1] Taken from http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/shelley_adonais.shtml