An Elegy on the Death of John Keats,

Essay Questions

1. How does Shelley use the Adonais/Adonis myth to shape the emotional and philosophical argument of the elegy? Consider how the mythological framework elevates Keats's status and allows Shelley to transition from personal grief to a universal statement about the fate of beauty and artistic genius. (AQA AO1/AO2; IB guiding concept: Intertextuality & Literary Tradition)

1. *To what extent does the dramatic tonal shift — from grief, through anger, to ecstatic acceptance — form the central structural argument of Adonais? Explore how Shelley's use of the Spenserian stanza form supports or constrains these tonal transitions across the poem's 55 stanzas. (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 Poetry Analysis)*

1. *How does Shelley present the relationship between the individual human life and the eternal in Adonais? In your response, examine how Platonic philosophy shapes his treatment of death as transformation rather than an end, with particular reference to the poem's imagery of nature, stars, and light. (IB guiding concept: Identity & Time, Space & Place; AQA AO1/AO2)*

1. *"In Adonais, Shelley transforms literary criticism into an act of murder." To what extent do you agree? Analyse how Shelley constructs the figure of the hostile critic through symbols of poison and violent imagery, and consider what this reveals about his beliefs regarding the power of art and the responsibility of the reader. (AQA AO1/AO2/AO3; AP Lit Q1 Poetry Analysis)*

1. How does the figure of Urania function both as a symbol of Poetry and as a vehicle for exploring the limits of art in the face of death? Consider how her role as a mourning mother figure who arrives too late complicates the poem's ultimate claim that Keats achieves immortality through his work. (AQA AO2; IB guiding concept: Transformation)

1. *Compare the way Shelley presents nature in Adonais with the way nature is presented in ONE other elegy or poem about mortality you have studied. What does a comparison reveal about the different ways poets use the natural world to negotiate grief, consolation, and the tension between human suffering and natural indifference? (AQA AO1/AO2/AO3; IB comparative guiding concept: Literary Forms & Contexts)*

1. *To what extent is Adonais as much a poem about Shelley's own mortality as it is a lament for Keats? Examine how the poem's closing stanzas, in which Shelley reflects on his own desire to abandon life, and the final bark/boat image, blur the boundary between elegist and subject, and consider what this suggests about the nature of poetic identification. (AQA AO1/AO2; AP Lit Q1 Poetry Analysis; IB guiding concept: Self & Other)*

1. How does Shelley use the elegy as a form to both inherit and challenge a classical literary tradition? Drawing on the poem's engagement with Greek pastoral elegy and earlier English elegies such as Milton's Lycidas, assess how Adonais uses, subverts, or transcends the conventions of the genre to make a distinctly Romantic statement about art, immortality, and redemption. (AQA AO1/AO2/AO3; IB guiding concept: Intertextuality & Literary Tradition)