Evaluate Adonais as a pastoral elegy

“Adonais” by P B Shelley is a pastoral elegy and is considered to be one of the best elegies of English literature.

The most prominent feature of pastoral elegy is the description of the nature of countryside; dark, gloom and quietness representing death, loss and sadness. For example, in “Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard”, poet Thomas Gray describes the nature at the time of sunset. Dark is approaching and everything is becoming quiet. Here dark symbolizes sorrow, loss or death. In “Adonais”, Shelley draws images of nature mourning over the death of Keats or Adonais.

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At the beginning of the poem, the speaker (Shelley) tells the readers that Adonais is dead and is calling Urania, his mother, who is now in paradise, to come and mourn his dead son. Shelley referred Uraina as the “most musical of mourners.” The dreams and thoughts of Adonais or Keats come to see him and mourn his death. Shelley says that these dreams and thoughts are like flocks of sheep and Keats is the shepherd. These sheep graze near the stream of Keats’ beautiful spirit and live on its water. If Keats had lived, he would have communicated these thoughts to other people but now he is dead and these thoughts are fading and lamenting their unhappy fate. This image of flocks of sheep and herdsman returning to their homes is very common in pastoral elegy for they focus on the beauty and simplicity of rural life.

Shelley has personified the emotions of human heart. They have come to see Adonais for one last time and mourn his death. Emotions such as desires, adorations, wingéd persuasions, destinies, splendors, glooms, hopes, fears, phantasies, sorrow with her family of sighs and pleasure blinded by tears walk slowly just like the way mist moves slowly over the streams during autumn.

The morning, the thunder, the ocean, and the wild winds mourned Keats’ death. The morning appeared in the east, her hair was loose and untied. Dew drops fell on the ground at dawn but upon knowing Keats’s death, the dew took the shape of clouds and darkened the sky. The ocean remained sad and calm and the thunder moaned.

Echo, nymph of the mountain, is so grief-stricken over the death of Keats that she lost her will to speak. Her silence makes the mountains voiceless. Echo will not reply to the birds chirping on the young tree branches, or herdsman's horn, or bell which can be heard while at the end of the day. Here Shelley talks about the end of the day and approach of night. Night symbolizes death and sadness.

Keats used to be a source of pleasure for the Spring season. His death made Spring wild in grief. It lost its spirit. During Spring, new leaves grow on trees but after Keats’ death leaves fall off from trees. Spring is so sad that it acted like Autumn.

In the end of a pastoral elegy, the poet represents his thoughts and ideas on life and death and provides consolation to the readers. Shelley also did the same thing in “Adonais”. He said that Adonais or Keats has not died but has become one with the nature. He is hopeful that Keats is not dead but will continue to live forever in the nature.