As to the relations between Shelley and Keats, I have to refer back to
the preceding memoir of Shelley.
ADONAIS:
ITS COMPOSITION AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.
For nearly two months after the death of Keats, 23 February, 1821,
Shelley appears to have remained in ignorance of the event: he knew it
on or before 19 April. The precise date when he began his Elegy does not
seem to be recorded: one may suppose it to have been in the latter half
of May. On 5 June he wrote to Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne: 'I have been
engaged these last days in composing a poem on the death of Keats, which
will shortly be finished; and I anticipate the pleasure of reading it to
you, as some of the very few persons who will be interested in it and
understand it. It is a highly wrought piece of art, and perhaps better,
in point of composition, than anything I have written.'
A letter to Mr. Ollier followed immediately afterwards.
'Pisa, June 8th, 1821,
'You may announce for publication a poem entitled _Adonais_. It is a
lament on the death of poor Keats, with some interspersed stabs on the
assassins of his peace and of his fame; and will be preceded by a
criticism on _Hyperion_, asserting the due claims which that fragment
gives him to the rank which I have assigned him.
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