Pastoral elegy Shelley's "Adonaïs" is a pastoral elegy written by Shelley immediately after hearing about the death of John Keats. The elegy is 495 lines long, consisting of a total of 55 Spenserian stanzas. "Adonaïs" was composed during the spring of 1821 and was eventually published in July 1821. Studying the works of many classical pastoral elegies himself, Shelley admired Milton's poetic voice and form in "Lycidas". Thus, Shelley composed "Adonaïs" specifically in the tradition of Milton's "Lycidas" Introduced to each other by their mutual friend Leigh Hunt in late 1816, Shelley and Keats often exchanged letters of advice about their works
Pastoral elegy the mythological figure Adonis. The next earliest example is by an anonymous author, probably of the 1st century BCE, lamenting the death of Bion; this poem has sometimes been attributed to the Hellenistic poet Moschus. Virgil's "Eclogue 5," written in the 1st century BCE, is the most imitated ancient model of the pastoral elegy. Virgil has two shepherd-poets, Mopsus and Menalcus, commemorate their dead friend and fellow poet Daphnis. Mopsus first laments Daphnis as a godlike figure whose death has caused all of nature to mourn (a pathetic fallacy conventional in pastoral elegies). Mopsus concludes his lament, however, by immortalizing