Timeline
Percy Bysshe Shelley - Adonais, published 1821
Composed and published in 1821, Adonais is subtitled An Elegy on the Death of John Keats... who, Shelley writes in his Preface, is "to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age".
Shelley blames Keats' death on the savage criticism of his poem Endymion, published in the Quarterly Review, April 1818. "Murderer", cries Shelley to the reviewer, "you have spoken daggers, but used none."
The name Adonais comes from Adonis, the beautiful youth loved by Venus, but killed by a wild boar, the beast-reviewer of Shelley's poem.
Although the poem is one of lamentation, it celebrates Keats' beauty and asserts his permanence: "He has outsoared the shadow of our night."