Adonaïs Adonaïs Adonaïs: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. , also spelled Adonaies, is a pastoral 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 11 April, when Shelley heard of Keats' death (seven weeks earlier). It is a pastoral elegy, in the English tradition of John Milton's "Lycidas". Shelley had studied and translated classical elegies. The title of the
Pastoral elegy Daphnis with the epitaph “known from here unto the stars” (line 43). Menalcas then describes Daphnis’ deification and nature's rejoicing and praise for Daphnis’ generosity—he is now a tutelary spirit for the pastoral world. Virgil provides hints that Daphnis represents Julius Caesar. Christians also interpreted Daphnis’ death and deification as an allegory of Christ. "Eclogue 5" thus became a model for elegies for public figures and for Christian celebrations of death and resurrection. Some say the best known elegy in English is "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," by Thomas Gray, a well-known English poet. This elegy discusses the actual