Adonais by Percy Bysshe Shelley
page 104 of 186 (55%)
page 104 of 186 (55%)
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1. 16. _My known repugnance ... proves at least_. In the Pisa edition
the word is printed 'prove' (not 'proves'). Shelley was far from being an exact writer in matters of this sort. 1. 21. _John Keats died ... in his twenty-fourth year, on the [23rd] of [February]_ 1821. Keats, at the time of his death, was not really in his twenty-fourth, but in his twenty-sixth year: the date of his birth was 31 October, 1795. In the Pisa edition of _Adonais_ the date of death is given thus--'the----of----1821': for Shelley, when he wrote his preface, had no precise knowledge of the facts. In some later editions, 'the 27th of December 1820' was erroneously substituted. Shelley's mistake in supposing that Keats, in 1821, was aged only twenty-three, may be taken into account in estimating his previous observation, 'I consider the fragment of _Hyperion_ as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years.' Keats, writing in August, 1820, had told Shelley (see p. 17) that some of his poems, perhaps including _Hyperion_, had been written 'above two years' preceding that date. If Shelley supposed that Keats was twenty-three years old at the beginning of 1821, and that _Hyperion_ had been written fully two years prior to August, 1820, he must have accounted that poem to be the product of a youth of twenty, or at most twenty-one, which would indeed be a marvellous instance of precocity. As a matter of fact, _Hyperion_ was written by Keats when in his twenty-fourth year. This diminishes the marvel, but does not make Shelley's comment on the poem any the less correct. 1. 22. _Was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius._ As to the burial of the ashes of Shelley himself in a separate portion of the same cemetery, see p. 23. Shelley lies nearer than Keats |
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