Adonais

Percy Bysshe Shelley's Adonais, written in 1821, is one of the great elegies in English: a lament for the poet John Keats that moves from grief and anger to a vision of the poet's spirit outlasting death. In fifty-five Spenserian stanzas, Shelley draws on the Greek pastoral elegies of Bion and Moschus, calls up a procession of mourning poets, and ends with Keats's soul shining 'like a star'.

This edition reproduces William Michael Rossetti's Clarendon Press edition of 1891. Alongside the complete poem and Shelley's own preface, it contains Rossetti's preface, his memoirs of Shelley and Keats, three essays on the poem's composition, argument and structure, a comparison with the elegies of Bion and Moschus, the passages Shelley cancelled, and Rossetti's detailed notes. Readers can take the poem on its own or follow it with a Victorian editor's commentary.

It suits readers new to Shelley, students of Romantic poetry, and anyone drawn to poems about loss.

This edition also contains a new introduction, a guide to the parts of the volume, a summary, notes on themes, a glossary and discussion questions.