SHELLEY'S ADONAIS: EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY W. M. ROSSETTI AND A. O. PRICKARD

Adonais is the first writing by Shelley which is a poem of convenient length being neither short nor decidedly long; and–leaving out of count some of the short poems–is the single one by this author which approaches to being ‘popular.’ It is elevated in sentiment, classical in form,–in substance, biographical in relation to Keats, and in some minor degree autobiographical for Shelley himself. On these grounds it claimed a reasonable preference over all his other poems, for the present method of treatment; although some students of Shelley, might be disposed to maintain that, in point of absolute intrinsic beauty and achievement, and of the qualities most especially characteristic of its author, it is not superior, or indeed is but barely equal, to some of his other compositions. Author has endeavoured to present the introductory matter, a comprehensive account of all particulars relevant to Adonais itself, and to Keats as its subject and Shelley as its author. The concluding notes are, ample in scale. The aim is to illustrate and elucidate the poem in its details, yet without travelling far afield in search of remote analogies or discursive comment–wherever a difficulty presents itself, the author essayed to define it, and clear it up.

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