Adonais Annotated

Adonaïs: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. also spelled Adonaies, is a pastoral poem about love 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).Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 - 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets, who is regarded by some as among the finest lyric and philosophical poets in the English language, and one of the most influential. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron, John Keats, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, and his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.Shelley is perhaps best known for classic poems such as "Ozymandias", "Ode to the West Wind", "To a Skylark", "Music, When Soft Voices Die", "The Cloud", and "The Masque of Anarchy". His other major works include a groundbreaking verse drama The Cenci(1819) and long, visionary, philosophical poems such as Queen Mab (later reworked as The Daemon of the World), Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Adonaïs, Prometheus Unbound (1820)-widely considered to be his masterpiece-Hellas: A Lyrical Drama (1821), and his final, unfinished work, The Triumph of Life (1822).Shelley's close circle of friends included some of the most important progressive thinkers of the day, including his father-in-law, the philosopher William Godwin, and Leigh Hunt. Though Shelley's poetry and prose output remained steady throughout his life, most publishers and journals declined to publish his work for fear of being arrested for either blasphemy or sedition. Shelley's poetry sometimes had only an underground readership during his day, but his poetic achievements are widely recognized today, and his political and social thought had an impact on the Chartist and other movements in England, and reach down to the present day. Shelley's theories of economics and morality, for example, had a profound influence on Karl Marx; his early-perhaps first-writings on nonviolent resistance influenced Leo Tolstoy, whose writings on the subject in turn influenced Mahatma Gandhi, and through him Martin Luther King Jr. and others practicing nonviolence during the American civil rights movement.Shelley became a lodestar to the subsequent three or four generations of poets, including important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets such as Robert Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was admired by Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell, W. B. Yeats, Upton Sinclair and Isadora Duncan.[3] Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience was apparently influenced by Shelley's writings and theories on non-violence in protest and political action. Shelley's popularity and influence has continued to grow in contemporary poetry circles.Shelley was born on 4 August 1792 at Field Place, Broadbridge Heath, near Horsham, West Sussex, England.[4][5] He was the eldest legitimate son of Sir Timothy Shelley (1753-1844), a Whig Member of Parliament for Horsham from 1790-1792 and for Shoreham between 1806-1812, and his wife, Elizabeth Pilfold (1763-1846), a Sussex landowner.[6][7] He had four younger sisters and one much younger brother. He received his early education at home, tutored by the cleric Evan Edwards of nearby Warnham. His cousin and lifelong friend Thomas Medwin, who lived nearby, recounted his early childhood in his The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. It was a happy and contented childhood spent largely in country pursuits such as fishing and hunting.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was one of the major Romantic poets and wrote what is critically recognised as some of the finest lyric poetry in the English Language. In this volume, the editors have selected the most popular, significant and frequently taught poems from the six-volume Longman Annotated edition of Shelley’s poems. Each poem is fully annotated, explained and contextualised, along with a comprehensive list of abbreviations, an inclusive bibliography of material relating to the text and interpretation of Shelley’s poetry, plus an extensive chronology of Shelley’s life and works. Headnotes and footnotes furnish the personal, literary, historical and scientific information necessary for an informed reading of Shelley’s richly varied and densely allusive verse, making this an ideal anthology for students, classroom use, and anyone approaching Shelley’s poetry for the first time; however the level and extent of commentary and annotation will also be of great value for researchers and critics.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was one of the major Romantic poets, and wrote what is critically recognised as some of the finest lyric poetry in the English language. This is the fourth volume of the five-volume The Poems of Shelley, which presents all of Shelley’s poems in chronological order and with full annotation. Date and circumstances of composition are provided for each poem and all manuscript and printed sources relevant to establishing an authoritative text are freshly examined and assessed. Headnotes and footnotes furnish the personal, literary, historical and scientific information necessary to an informed reading of Shelley’s varied and allusive verse. Most of the poems in the present volume were written between late autumn 1820 and late summer 1821. They include Adonais, Shelley’s lament on the death of John Keats, widely recognised as one of the finest elegies in English poetry, as well as Epipsychidion, a poem inspired by his relationship with the nineteen-year-old Teresa Viviani (‘Emilia’), the object of an intense but temporary fascination for Shelley. The poems of this period show the extent both of Shelley’s engagement with Keats’s volume Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820) — a copy of which he first read in October 1820 — and of his interest in Italian history, culture and politics. Shelley’s translations of some of his own poems into Italian and his original compositions in the language are also included here. In addition to accompanying commentaries, there are extensive bibliographies to the poems, a chronological table of Shelley’s life and publications, and indexes to titles and first lines. The volumes of The Poems of Shelley form the most comprehensive edition of Shelley’s poetry available to students and scholars.

Provides insight into five of Shelley's poems along with a short history of the man and his life.

About A Dish of Orts Read the thoughts of the man who influenced three generations of philosophers and writers. Lovers of fantasy, literary apologetics, and Christian thought will appreciate A Dish of Orts, MacDonald’s work on using the imagination to lift and enliven the mind. George MacDonald, considered the pioneer of the fantasy genre, had an impact on the mind and imaginations of some of the most influential Christian writers of the 20th century. C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien all were greatly impacted by both MacDonald’s imaginative fiction as well as his sermons and social commentary. At the hub of the English Victorian literary circles, MacDonald was friends with many of the literary luminaries of his day such as Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson, William Thackeray, John Ruskin, as well as many others.. Lovers of Alice in Wonderland have George MacDonald to thank for its publication after Lewis Carroll (the pen name for C.L. Dodgson) was encouraged to publish the story after its enthusiastic reception by MacDonald's children. MacDonald was so widely regarded, that upon his passing, G.K. Chesteron said of him, "George MacDonald was one of the three or four greatest men of the nineteenth century." This great man is gone, but his works remain. A Dish of Orts is a collection of essays by George MacDonald on topics ranging from imagination to Shakespeare, from poetry to living the true Christian life. This new annotated edition bridges the gap for 21st century readers to MacDonald’s 19th century world.

A new type of Shelley edition for students: as well as reliable versions of the key texts, there are summaries, notes glossing difficult words or phrases and technical notes. Each poem also comes with concise biographical information and intertexts—extracts from related works, as well as letters, influences, critical material and other texts, to deepen understanding, stimulate discussion and promote wider reading.

Jeffrey N. Cox refines our conception of 'second generation' Romanticism by placing it within the circle of writers around Leigh Hunt that came to be known as the 'Cockney School'. Offering a theory of the group as a key site for cultural production, Cox challenges the traditional image of the Romantic poet as an isolated figure by recreating the social nature of the work of Shelley, Keats, Hunt, Hazlitt, Byron, and others, as they engaged in literary contests, wrote poems celebrating one another, and worked collaboratively on journals and other projects. Cox also recovers the work of neglected writers such as John Hamilton Reynolds, Horace Smith, and Cornelius Webb as part of the rich social and cultural context of Hunt's circle. This book not only demonstrates convincingly that a 'Cockney School' existed, but shows that it was committed to putting literature in the service of social, cultural, and political reform.