Publisher's Synopsis
Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc., is an elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and most well-known works. The poem, which is in 495 lines in 55 Spenserian stanzas, was composed in the spring of 1821 immediately after April 11, when Shelley heard of Keats' death (seven weeks earlier). The title of the poem is likely a merging of the Greek "Adonis," the god of fertility, and the Hebrew "Adonai" (meaning "Lord"). Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 - 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Though considered too radical in both his poetry and his political and social views to achieve fame during his lifetime, recognition of his significance grew steadily following his death. Percy Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord George Gordon Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock. and his second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of 'Frankenstein'.
