Character Analysis Beatrice

Beatrice is one of the most delightful characters in all of Shakespeare — certainly

one of the most talkative and witty. She is likely to touch a responsive chord with
many readers and playgoers today in light of current social ideas that encourage
greater equality and self-assertiveness for women than has been traditional for
women of the Western world. The traditional woman of the Elizabethan period,
especially of Beatrice's class, is better represented by her cousin Hero — the naive,
chaste, and quiet young woman of whom Beatrice is extremely protective. Beatrice
is as cunning and forward as Hero is naive and shy.
Beatrice often interrupts or speaks her mind without concern about decorum. Her
first line interrupts the conversation between Leonato and the messenger and is
loaded with sarcasm and bitterness. Throughout the play, she is very clever with
words, displaying considerable intellectual faculty as well as a natural ability for
humor. And her way with words is sharpened when the object of her humor is
Benedick.
Beatrice's unexplained bitterness toward Benedick is displayed right from the
beginning. Then we begin to realize she has been hurt by him. Still stinging from
past experiences with him, now she greets him with scorn, wariness, and anger.
Eventually we recognize that desire and affection for him are still buried within
her. She has learned to use humor and insults to disguise deeper emotions. Yet,
when she overhears Hero describing her faults, she is surprised at how she is
perceived by others: "Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?" She vows
to abandon her habits of contempt and pride, and also to let herself love Benedick
openly.
Before Beatrice can express her true feelings to Benedick, she may find it so
difficult to change her habits of scorn and insult that she has physical symptoms of
discomfort: "I am exceeding ill. . . . I am stuffed. . . . I cannot smell." Finally in a
moment of high emotion during which she rages over the deception against Hero,
she is also able to tell Benedick that she loves him — first tentatively, then without
constraint: "I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest." Yet at
the end, she must have her last hesitation — joking or not:
Benedick: Do not you love me?
Beatrice: Why no, no more than reason.

And when she finally agrees to marry him, she has her last little gibe on the
subject:

Beatrice: I would not deny you. But . . . I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to
save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

Has Beatrice changed over the week or so of the play's time-line? At the very least,
her tongue is not so sharp and belittling; at best, she has let herself love and be
loved — a miraculous change in such a strong, independent woman.
In some respects, Hero is a foil for Beatrice — a character whose presence serves
to show off or enhance the qualities of another character. (The term foil originated
as a piece of shiny metal placed under a precious stone to heighten its luster. One
of the best-known literary foils is Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle.)
Hero has her own story, of course, representing the formal courtship traditions of
the period. In any arrangements about marriage throughout the play, she is
generally passive. At its start, she is apparently attracted to Claudio from an earlier
visit, yet she accepts Leonato's guidance to accept Don Pedro's proposal at the
dance. Then she discovers that Don Pedro is pursuing her only for Claudio, and she
is happy to accept Claudio. After being accused of deceit with another man, she
denies any wrongdoing and faints at the shock of the denunciation. She "plays
dead," then pretends to be a cousin ready to marry Claudio, and finally unmasks as
a loving Hero again.

But at the end of the play Hero is probably less naive about men. She even speaks
up for herself to Claudio after her unveiling: "One Hero died defiled, but I do
live, / And surely as I live, I am a maid." Furthermore, she takes time to "steal"
Beatrice's poem expressing love for Benedick and gives it to Benedick at a crucial
moment, probably cementing the bond between Beatrice and Benedick. A changed
Hero? Perhaps a first move toward self-confidence and maturity.
Character Analysis Benedick
Benedick is almost a match for Beatrice as a memorable Shakespearean character.
His apparent misogyny and unwillingness to make a commitment to a woman are
almost stereotypes early in the play. His use of language, especially in his "merry
war" with Beatrice, prevents him from being the clichéd male who refuses to
commit to a relationship.
Benedick has probably had a lot of experience with women, only one of whom was
Beatrice. He vehemently declares his intent to remain a bachelor and disparages
Claudio for wanting to marry Hero, "Leonato's short daughter." He restates his
disdain of love and marriage in a monologue alone on stage — even more likely to
express his true feelings than his teasing comments to a companion he will lose
through marriage. Throughout the early scenes, his exchanges with Beatrice create
a feeling that he "doth protest too much" — that is, he really harbors at least
affection for Beatrice.
It takes the "noting" scene near the arbor, arranged by Don Pedro, for Benedick to
admit he may indeed be able to love Beatrice since she loves him so much. His
subsequent meetings with Beatrice and with his friends show a marked change in
his attitudes and demeanor from the early scenes. He recognizes that he may be
opening himself up for ridicule at his reversal of his well-known attitudes, but he
sees his opening up as a part of maturing. His support for Beatrice after the
denunciation, including his confrontation with Claudio, demonstrates not only his
commitment to Beatrice, but also the value he places on justice even at the risk of
loyalty. He becomes single-minded about marrying Beatrice, probably speaking to
Leonato about her immediately after the confrontation with Claudio and again just
before the wedding. His new behavior finally culminates in his public proposal to
her, risking not only her refusal and contempt, but also the ridicule of the
assembled company.
Has Benedick changed during the week of the play? Most certainly, both in his
public and his private attitudes. That a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor is transformed
into an eager bridegroom is extraordinary, yet Shakespeare makes it believable,
with a little help from Benedick's friends
Character Analysis Antony
Prior to Caesar's assassination, Antony makes four brief appearances in which he
speaks a total of five lines. Twice during Lupercal and again at Caesar's house, he
makes short statements indicating that he is loyal to Caesar as dictator and as a
friend. Caesar's confiding to Antony at Lupercal indicates that he trusts Antony and
looks upon him as a friend in return, perhaps even as a protégé. Antony appears at
the Capitol at the beginning of Act III, Scene 1, but he does not speak before
Trebonius leads him out.
When, during Lupercal, Caesar describes Cassius as a dangerous man, Antony
defends him as "a noble Roman and well given." While Antony does not perceive
at that time that Cassius is dangerous, and later underestimates the determination of
Octavius, as a ruler, he is a perceptive observer who verifies Cassius' assessment of
him as being a "shrewd contriver." Following the assassination, Antony quickly
grasps that he must deal with Brutus, and he has the shrewdness to take advantage
of Brutus' naïveté. When he has his servant say that "Brutus is noble, wise, valiant,
and honest," it is clear that Antony intends to flatter Brutus and to work upon those
personal qualities of Brutus that represent moral strengths, but that are also
fundamental weaknesses when dealing with a more sophisticated man.
Antony's requests for safety and for an explanation for the murder are reasonable in
the context of the situation, but Brutus' consent to provide both ensures that, upon
returning to the Capitol, Antony can concentrate on his ultimate objective of
gaining a forum. At the Capitol, by having Brutus repeat his promises, Antony
succeeds in placing him on the defensive and in establishing a means to evade the
more difficult questions being raised by Cassius. He is not in the slightest degree
deterred by considerations of honesty when dealing with those whom he wishes to
deceive or manipulate. He knows that Brutus wants to believe that he (Antony)
will join the conspirators' cause, and he takes advantage of Brutus' hope when he
falsely tells the conspirators, "Friends am I with you all, and love you all." He will
also freely use half-truths and outright falsehoods to sway the mob at the Forum to
do what he wants.
Antony faces danger in this meeting from Cassius, who knows him to be a "shrewd
contriver," and from the other conspirators, who know him to be a friend of Caesar.
He disposes of the threat of Cassius by directing his attention to the more powerful
and gullible Brutus, whom he keeps on the defensive by repeating that he will be
friends if he receives a satisfactory explanation. He disposes of the remaining
conspirators by boldly raising the subject of his apparent hypocrisy in making
friends with his friend's murderers and by then shrewdly diverting his comments to
the nobility of Caesar. This is much in the manner that he will turn the citizens to
rebellion by professing that he does not want to stir them up. Antony, in reality,
wants two things: to avenge Caesar's murder and to rule Rome. In order to do both,
he must first undermine public confidence in the republicans, and second, he must
drive them from power by creating a chaotic situation that will allow him to seize
power in their place. The method he chooses is to gain permission to speak at
Caesar's funeral, and that is the sole reason he plays the role he does in the Capitol.
In his soliloquy in the Capitol, Antony reveals that he intends to create civil strife
throughout Italy, and in his oration he sets it off to a promising start. He is
thoroughly the politically expedient man in his speech. He wants to create rebellion
and overthrow the republicans so that he and Octavius can fill the vacuum, and he
succeeds to the fullest measure. From his soliloquy in the Capitol until the end of
the play, he is constantly ambitious, confident, successful, and exceptionally
ruthless. He has no concern for the welfare of the citizens of Rome who will suffer
in the civil strife he has instigated, he is willing to have a nephew put to death
rather than argue for his life, he seeks to keep as much as he can of Caesar's legacy
to the poor of Rome, and he openly acknowledges that he will remove Lepidus
from power as soon as Lepidus is no longer of use to him.
He has some personality conflict with Octavius, but he is able to relegate it to the
background so that their differences are always secondary to their struggle to
defeat Brutus and Cassius. Antony is also particularly adept at locating the most
advantageous point of attack in all of his confrontations. In the Capitol, rather than
confront all of the conspirators, he concentrates on Brutus' naive sense of honor
and nobility. In the Forum, rather than construct a reasoned argument against the
assassins, he appeals to the emotion with which he saw the crowd respond to
Brutus' speech. At Philippi, when Brutus leaves Cassius' army exposed, Antony
attacks immediately. At the conclusion of the play, when Brutus and Cassius are
dead and the republicans thoroughly defeated, he publicly praises Brutus in order
to set about healing the political wounds of Rome. Ironically, Brutus hoped to
remove arbitrary government from Rome by the assassination, but by murdering
Caesar, he established the conditions for an even more ruthless tyranny to seize
power in the persons of Antony and Octavius.
Character sketch of marcus brotus .
William Shakespeare has occupied a lofty position for his extraordinary
characterization. His characters are unforgettable. Marcus Brutus is such a
character in the play, Julius Caesar. Brutus is recognized by everybody in Rome as
a noble-minded man. Casca says that Brutus stands high in all the people's hearts.
Brutus's participation in the conspiration against Caesar would make the
assassination of Caesar appear to be a noble deed.
Marcus Brutus
In a soliloquy, Cassius himself says that Brutus is s man of a noble character
though he can be misled and lured into a wrong path. At the end of the play,
Antony pays a high tribute to Brutus by saying that Brutus was the noblest of all
the Romans who joined the conspiracy against Caesar.Brutus is not gamesone. He
lacks some part of that quick spirit which is in Antony. He is not a sportsman like
Antony. Even he is not interested in watching the games which are going to be
held as part of the celebrations of the Lupercalia. We soon learn that the conflict in
his mind is bet his love for Caesar and his love for freedom. He values honour even
more than he fears death. He is an idealist. Being an idealist and a visionary with
little knowledge of practical realities, he fails as a statesman and as a military
leader.Brutus is an unselfish man. He joins the conspiracy against Caesar because
of his profound and real love of freedom and republicanism. He is a very close to
Caesar. He feels a deep affection for Caesar. Caesar seems to Brutus to be well on
the way to become a dictator and a tyrant. Brutus's motives in joining the
conspiracy are therefore totally unselfish. Brutus is s philosopher and an idealistic
philosopher. Brutus lives in the world of ideas and ideals. Brutus proves a failure
both as a conspirator and as a military leader.
To sum up, we can say that Brutus is morally far superior to Cassius. For
politicians and military leaders, morality is not the chief consideration. Brutus had
not taken up himself the responsibility to lead the conspirators.
Analysis of Ode to melancholy
The "Ode to Melancholy" belongs to a class of eighteenth-century poems that have
some form of melancholy as their theme. Such poetry came to be called the
"Graveyard School of Poetry" and the best-known example of it is Thomas Gray's
"Elegy in a Country Churchyard." The romantic poets inherited this tradition. One
of the effects of this somber poetry about death, graveyards, the brevity of pleasure
and of life was a pleasing feeling of melancholy.
Keats' special variation on the theme was to make the claim that the keenest
experience of melancholy was to be obtained not from death but from the
contemplation of beautiful objects because they were fated to die. Therefore the
most sensuous man, the man who can "burst Joy's grape against his palate fine," as
Keats put it in a striking image, is capable of the liveliest response to melancholy.
Keats' own experience of life and his individual temperament made him acutely
aware of the close relationship between joy and sorrow. His happiness was
constantly being chipped away by frustration. He was himself a very sensuous
individual. In the "Ode to Melancholy," Keats, instead of rejecting melancholy,
shows a healthy attraction toward it, for unless one keenly experiences it, he cannot
appreciate joy.
The abruptness with which "Ode to Melancholy" begins is accounted for by the
fact that the stanza with which the poem begins was originally the second stanza.
The original first stanza was
Though you should build a bark of dead men's bones,
And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast,
Stitch creeds together for a sail, with groans
To fill it out, blood-stained and aghast;
Although your rudder be a dragon's tail
Long sever'd, yet still hard with agony,
Your cordage large uprootings from the skull
Of bald Medusa, certes you would fail
To find the Melancholy — whether she
Dreameth in any isle of Lethe dull.

We don't know why Keats rejected this original beginning stanza, but we can
guess. He was straining to create images of death that would convey something of
the repulsiveness of death — to give the reader a romantic shudder of the Gothic
kind — and what he succeeded in doing was repulsive instead of delicately
suggestive and was out of keeping with what he achieved in the rest of the poem.
Moreover, he may have felt that two stanzas on death were more than enough. The
stanza is crude and Keats realized it.
The stanza with which Keats decided to begin the poem is startling, but not crude.
Keats brought together a remarkable collection of objects in the stanza. Lethe is a
river in the classical underworld. Wolfsbane and nightshade are poisonous plants.
The yew-berry is the seed (also poisonous) of the yewtree, which, because it is
hardy and an evergreen, is traditionally planted in English graveyards. Replicas of
a black beetle were frequently placed in tombs by Egyptians; to the Egyptians, the
scarab or black beetle was a symbol of resurrection, but to Keats they were a
symbol of death because of their association with tombs. The death-moth or
butterfly represented the soul leaving the body at death. The owl was often
associated with otherworldly symbols because of its nocturnal habits and its
ominous hooting. Death is the common denominator of the displays in Keats'
museum of natural history. The language of the stanza is vastly superior to that of
the discarded stanza. Nothing in it can compare with calling nightshade the "ruby
grape of Proserpine," the queen of the underworld, nor with making a rosary of
yew-berries and thereby automatically suggesting prayers for the dying or the
dead. The stanza is one of the richest and strangest in Keats' poetry.

To Autumn (Keats poem) Themes

Death
Autumn, in spite of the season's festive colors and beauty, ultimately signals a
process of death and decay. Even as the figures and images identified by the
speaker signify the season's languor and livelihood, they also represent the peak of
life—a point that signals imminent decline. The tree branches may be filled with
ripe fruit, but soon this fruit must be picked, then the leaves will change color and
fall to the ground. Likewise, the youth who naps on a hay bale must eventually
wake up.
Transitions
"To Autumn" is also about change, or the process by which one state of being
enters or becomes another. As the speaker observes the season's culmination of
life, he also recognizes the first subtle traces of change in the natural world as it
prepares for winter. The speaker, by contemplating the world around him, comes to
accept the inevitably of time's passing, and realizes that he should savor the beauty
the season can offer, instead of wishing for, or looking back to, warmer days.
Beauty
By the end of the poem, the speaker recognizes autumn's particular beauty. Why
mourn the lush landscapes of spring and summer when autumn, as he says, has its
own music?
Nature
Keats creates a parallel between the cycles of decay in the natural world with the
inevitability of death in mankind. Nature functions as a backdrop for the poet's
ruminations on time, death, and happiness. Just as life reaches its sweetest point, it
begins its downhill spiral. But nature, like man, is infinitely renewed: seasons pass
and return, just as death is balanced by new life.
Innocence and Experience
Throughout the poem, the tension between innocence—the superficial joys one
experiences through autumn's bounty and beauty—and experience—the knowledge
that all of its fruits will soon be picked, that all of the colorful leaves will fall to the
ground and decay—expresses both the speaker's skepticism towards the leisure and
pleasure he witnesses around him, and his acceptance that these feelings of
happiness and melancholy can coexist. By the end, the speaker's realization that he
can see the beauty for what is, regardless of its transience, demonstrates wisdom,
not ignorance.
Definition of Ode
An ode is a form of poetry such as sonnet or elegy. Ode is a literary technique that
is lyrical in nature, but not very lengthy. You have often read odes in which poets
praise people, natural scenes, and abstract ideas. Ode is derived from a Greek
word aeidein, which means to chant or sing. It is highly solemn and serious in
its tone and subject matter, and usually is used with elaborate patterns of stanzas.
However, the tone is often formal. A salient feature of ode is its uniform metrical
feet, but poets generally do not strictly follow this rule though use highly
elevated theme.
Ode to Autumn by John Keats: Summary and Critical Analysis
In this poem Keats describes the season of Autumn. The ode is an address to the
season. It is the season of the mist and in this season fruits is ripened on the
collaboration with the Sun. Autumn loads the vines with grapes. There are apple
trees near the moss growth cottage. The season fills the apples with juice. The
hazel-shells also grow plumb. These are mellowed. The Sun and the autumn help
the flowers of the summer to continue. The bees are humming on these flowers.
John Keats (1795-1821)
John Keats (1795-1821)
They collect honey from them. The beehives are filled with honey. The clammy
cells are overflowing with sweet honey. The bees think as if the summer would
never end and warm days would continue for a long time. Autumn has been
personified and compared to women farmer sitting carefree on the granary floor;
there blows a gentle breeze and the hairs of the farmer are fluttering. Again
Autumn is a reaper. It feels drowsy and sleeps on the half reaped corn. The poppy
flowers have made her drowsy. The Autumn holds a sickle in its hand. It has
spared the margin of the stalks intertwined with flowers. Lastly, Autumn is seen as
a worker carrying a burden of corn on its head.
The worker balances his body while crossing a stream with a bundle on his head.
The Autumn is like an onlooker sitting the juicy oozing for hours. The songs and
joys of spring are not found in Autumn seasons. But Keats says that Autumn has
its own music and charm. In an autumn evening mournful songs of the gnats are
heard in the willows by the river banks. Besides the bleat of the lambs returning
from the grassy hills is heard. The whistle of the red breast is heard from the
garden. The grasshoppers chirp and swallow twitters in the sky. This indicates that
the winter is coming.
Ode to Autumn is an unconventional appreciation of the autumn season. It
surprises the reader with the unusual idea that autumn is a season to rejoice. We
are familiar with Thomas Hardy's like treatment of autumn as a season of gloom,
chill and loneliness and the tragic sense of old age and approaching death. Keats
sees the other side of the coin. He describes autumn as: "Season of mists and
mellow fruitfulness! / Close bosom friend of the maturing sun". He understands
maturity and ripeness as one with old age and decay. Obviously thin, old age is a
complement to youth, as death is to life. Keats here appears as a melodist; he
seems to have accepted the fundamental paradoxes of life as giving meaning to it.
The very beginning of the poem is suggestive of acceptance and insight after a
conflict.

The subject matter of this ode is reality itself at one level: Keats depicts the autumn
season and claims that its unique music and its role of completing the round of
seasons make it a part of the whole. Although autumn will be followed by the cold
and barren winter, winter itself will in turn give way to fresh spring. Life must go
on but it cannot continue in turn give way to fresh spring. Life must go on but it
cannot continue without death that completes one individual life and begins
another. This is indirectly conveyed with the concluding line of the ode: "And
gathering swallows twitter in the skies". In one way, this gives a hint of the coming
winter when shallows will fly to the warm south.

The theme of ripeness is complemented by the theme of death and that of death by
rebirth. So, in the final stanza, the personified figure of autumn of the second
stanza is replaced by concrete images of life. Autumn is a part of the year as old
age is of life. Keats has accepted autumn, and connotatively, old age as natural
parts and processes them.
Among the six wonderful Odes of Keats To Autumn occupies a distinct place of its
own, for it is, in execution, the most perfect of his Odes. Many critics agree in
ranking To Autumn first among Keats’ Odes. Its three eleven-line stanza
ostensibly do nothing more than a season; no philosophical reflections intrude. His
simple love of Nature without any tinge of reflectiveness and ethical meaning finds
expression in To Autumn. The scented landscape in the first stanza, and the music
of natural sounds in the last stanza would have been enough for most poets, but the
effect would have been incomplete without the figures of the winnower, the reaper,
the gleaner and the cider-presser which give a human touch to Autumn. Although
the poem contains only three stanzas, Keats has been successful in expressing the
beauty, the charm, the symphony of Autumn, and the ageless human activities in
the lap of Nature.

To Autumn is, in a sense, a return to the mood of the Ode on Indolence-«making

the moment sufficient to itself. It is, apparently, the most objective and descriptive
poem, yet the emotion has become so completely through it. There is no looking
before and after in this poem as Keats surrenders himself fully to the rich beauty of
the season. He is not troubled by the thought of the approaching winter nor by that
of the vanished spring. In this approach to Nature he remains the great artist that he
was. Neither philosophy taints his thoughts, nor does sorrow cloud his vision.
Other poets have thought of Autumn as the season of decay. But to Keats, Autumn
was the season of mellow fruitfulness and happy content. He is content with the
autumn music, however pensive it may be.

There are no echoes in it, no literary images; all is clear, single, perfectly attuned.
Our enjoyment of the beauty and peace of the season is disturbed by no romantic
longing, no classic aspiration, no looking before and after, no pining, for what is
not, no foreboding of winter, no regret for the spring that is gone, and no prophetic
thought of other springs to follow. To Autumn expresses the essence of the season,
but it draws no lesson, no overt comparison with human life. Keats was being
neither allegorical, nor Wordsworthian. Keats in this poem is almost content with
the pure phenomenon. He describes Nature as she is.

This is the secret of Keats’s strength, his ability to take the beauty of the present
moment, so completely into his heart that it becomes an eternal possession. For
him the poetry of the earth is never dead. It is noteworthy that To Autumn is the
only major poem of Keats that is completely unsexual. Woman as erotic object has
been banished from this placid landscape. Keats’ sense of the wholeness of life is
nowhere communicated so richly or with such concentration as in this Ode. The
characteristic tension of the other Odes makes them more passionate, perhaps, but
leaves them with a sense of strain. Here all is relaxed and calm, life-accepting.
Definition of Elegy
An elegy is a form of poetry that typically reflects on death or loss. Traditionally,
an elegiacal poem addresses themes of mourning, sorrow, and lamentation;
however, such poems can also address redemption and solace. Overall, the artistic
language of poetry allows such sentiments to be expressed and articulated in the
form of elegy.
Adonais as an elegy
A Pastoral Elegy is a song of grief in which the poet in the guise of a Shepherd
mourns the death of some dear and near ones who are also presented as a
Shepherd. As it is already stated, pastoral elegists mourn a subject by representing
the mourner and the subject as shepherds in a pastoral setting. Representing all
these conventions, Adonais is a Pastoral Elegy. It has been criticized on the ground
that the expression of grief in it is not sincere, for one who sincerely mourns
expresses his grief directly and does not run after metaphors or figurative
expression (the dreams and fancies of Adonais as his mourners, to bring in the
mountain shepherds, and to personify the power of nature may be good poetry but
it is urbanely artificial) But as a matter of fact, Adonais is not an expression of
personal sorrow. Shelley never claimed it to be so. It is a lament on the loss of a
valuable life as ‘Lycidas’. Also, Keats and Shelley had never been intimate friend,
and Shelley did not think highly of any of his of …. than, ‘Hyperior”.
 Percy Bysshe Shelley was attracted by Keats because he founded in him a poet
of promise, and because his sympathy was aroused of by the story, though wrong,
that he had been killed by the brutal attack on his Endymion in the Quarterly
Review. That is why we are not told so much of Keats as about the Reviewers who
are supposed to have caused the death of a great poet.
However, it will have to be admitted that expression of grief has a greater ring of
sincerity that that of Milton in Lycidas, who is more concerned with his friend.
Shelley is more sincere than Arnold in Thyrsis, which was written five years after
the death of his friend Clough, because Shelley has himself suffered at the hands of
the same reviewers. As he himself tells us, he is a ‘partial mean’.
Shelley chose the Pastoral convention for his elegy, for he had such noble
examples as his precedents as Milton’s ‘Lycidas and Spenser’s ‘Astrephel’. He
used the classical form , so that he may connect his theme with the great poetic
tradition of the world, and so that the may represent Keats as one of a long series
of poets, all native of the same enchanted country and all children of the same
mother, uranir.
Though Adonais has lose resemblances with lycidas, which can not be accidental,
yet lycidas was not Shelley’s model. He went directly to Greek Masters. Shelley’s
elegy is closely modeled upon Bion’s lament of Aphrodite for Adonais. But
Shelley has changed the spirit and made the work entirely his own by the touch of
his genius.
As a pastoral elegy, adonais closely follows the classical machinery, of pastoral. It
may bed divided into two parts. The first running up to the 38 th stanza, is cast in
the pastoral mould ; there is the traditional of invocation to weep, sympathetic
mourning in nature, procession of mourner consisting of the flocks of dead
Shepherd, and his follow shepherd , personal digression and invective,. In the
second part (17 stanza), Shelley strikes a modern note. There us change if mood,
and final consolation.
In the first part the poet closely follows the Pastoral convention. There is the
traditional invocation to weep; the procession of mourners consisting of the
Dreams of Keats represented as him flock, nature objects, and contemporary poets,
including Shelley. The portrait that Shelley gives of himself is unique in many
ways. The quick succession of abstract images imparts an element of vagueness to
the description of Shelley. The inactive (angry or abusive language) is a weak spot
in the poem.
It may also be noted that while the general atmosphere is Pastoral, the Pastoral note
itself is weaker and thinner, and lee consistent in ‘Adonais” than is the case with
‘Lycidas” and ‘Thyrsis”. In ‘Adonais’ the pastoral note is entirely absent from the
first eight stangas , it is shuck for the first time in the ninth stanza, continues till the
seventieth stanza, and then ceases for the nest twelve stanzas . It ageing begins in
the twentieth stanza, continuer in the magnificent vein for six stanzas, and then
dies out altogether.