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
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard verbal parallels, chose similar backgrounds to signal their parentage. One favourite theme was a meditation among ruins, such as John Langhorne's “Written among the ruins of Pontefract Castle” (1756), Edward Moore’s “An elegy, written among the ruins of a nobleman's seat in Cornwall” (1756) and John Cunningham’s “An elegy on a pile of ruins" (1761). Gray's friend William Mason chose an actual churchyard in South Wales for his “Elegy VI” (1787), adding a reference to the poet in the text. He also provided a final note explaining that the poem was written “to make it appear a day scene, and