Adonais

PREFACE MEMOIR OF SHELLEY MEMOIR OF KEATS ADONAIS: ITS COMPOSITION AND BIBLIOGRAPHY ITS ARGUMENT GENERAL EXPOSITION BION AND MOSCHUS ADONAIS: PREFACE ADONAIS CANCELLED PASSAGES...

It is said that in the spring of 1817 Shelley and Keats agreed that each of them would undertake an epic, to be written in a space of six months: Shelley produced _The Revolt of...

The _Masque of Anarchy_ and _Peter Bell the Third_, both written by Shelley in 1819, were published later on; also various minor poems, complete or fragmentary. _Peter Bell the...

From the dates already cited, it may be assumed that the Pisan edition of _Adonais_ was in London in the hands of Mr. Ollier towards the middle of August, 1821, purchasable by w...

I now come to Aphrodite Urania. This deity is to be carefully distinguished from the Cyprian or Pandemic Aphrodite: she is different, not only in attribute and function, but eve...

'The flowers flush red for anguish.... This kiss will I treasure, even as thyself, Adonis, since, ah ill-fated! thou art fleeing me,... while wretched I yet live, being a goddes...

Our Adonais has drunk poison--oh What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life's early cup with such a draught of woe? The nameless worm would now itself disown; It felt, yet...

11. 4, 5. _And thou, sad Hour,... rouse thy obscure compeers._ The compeers are clearly the other Hours. Why they should be termed 'obscure' is not quite manifest. Perhaps Shell...

+Stanza 13,+ 1. 1. _And others came,--Desires and Adorations,_ &c. This passage is the first in which Shelley has direct recourse, no longer to the Elegy of Bion for Adonis, but...

11. 8, 9. _Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way._ The tears of May are rain-drops; young, because the year is not far...

1. 4. _The nameless worm._ A worm, as being one of the lowest forms of life, is constantly used as a term implying contempt; but it may be assumed that Shelley here uses 'worm'...

1. 7. _A slope of green access._ The old Protestant Cemetery. Shelley described it thus in his letter to Mr. Peacock of 22 December, 1818. 'The English burying-place is a green...

[5] Though Shelley gave this advice, which was anything but unsound, he is said to have taken good-naturedly some steps with a view to getting the volume printed. Mr. John Dix,...