Antonia A. Mendez
English 467: The Romantic Age
Professor Jim Garrett
Assignment – Response No. 5
The Devices of Diffusion and Fragmentation in “Adonais”
In Shelley’s “Adonais,” the devices of diffusion and fragmentation are instrumental to the cogency of this poem of prophecy, loss and mourning. Thus, the intent is twofold: to show through reflective light and brilliance the good of a man; and the fragmenting and splintering inflicted by the evil of other men.
The mythological person of Adonis is utilized by Shelley to symbolize an esteemed poet, the protagonist, named Adonais. Adonais’s fragmentation is immediately apparent in stanzas one and two, whereby Shelley not only weeps for the death of the protagonist, but also imbues mother/mentor figures, such as the mythological Venus and Persephone: “I weep for Adonais – he is dead”! (Damrosch 779). No pain is more powerful to a mother than the death of a child, and certainly Shelley identifies with the pain and death of the young poet. The protagonist is thrust into a perpetual fragmentation, whereby he must live half the time below earth in the dark, and the other half on earth in the light, as stated in footnote 4: “Zeus decreed that he would spend half the year in the underworld with Persephone and half the year aboveground with Venus – a perpetual death and rebirth…” (779). Shelley also imbues fragmentation when alluding to the good of his protagonist with the motif of the flower, fresh, natural, and blooming, yet it is plucked before its prime: “The bloom whose petals, nipped before
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they blew / died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; / The broken lily lies – the storm is overpast” (780).
Concurrently,
Shelley invokes the cosmos to depict that other than the heavenly stars,
everything else is earthy, subordinate, or fragmented:
“The lamps of heaven flash … All baser things pant with life’s
sacred thirsts / Diffuse themselves, and spend in love’s delight…”(783).
It is evident that the lamp or star is symbolic for the protagonist,
while the baser things are the critics who implode other poets and who are in
the dark when it comes to recognizing true literary works.
In another example of the decadence of the antagonists (critics) is
depicted by a linkage to the downfall of the
The value of the fragmentation motif is that the reader can identify with the break down, the downfall, the splintering, and the death, but it enables us to also envision the rebirth, redemption, and reconnection. This is evident in Adonais, when the protagonist (Keats) is redeemed by Shelley in the following quotation: “No more Let life divide what Death can join together” (790). The parallel poetic diction of both mythology and nature reflects the cosmos above and the earth below. The strength of this parallel incorporates the romantic and the sublime, and thus Shelley effectively strengthens his intention to illustrate the soundness and natural order of his protagonist, despite the critics.
The device of light and diffusion are used by Shelley to impart the brilliance of Keats’s literary works of which he adamantly disagreed with the critics. In the following quotation, Shelley predicts the resurrection of acclaim for Keats and declares him “Thou
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were a morning star among the living” (777). This is further supported in the following quotation: “Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be / An echo and a light unto eternity: (779). The value of light lends itself to reflection, diffusion, deflection, and refraction, as well as the lights that reflect from mirrors, and in the eyes. These faculties of light are the effects of what Shelley believes is indicative of Keats’s worth and are a declaration to the critics of what they overlooked. This is evident when examining the stanza where Shelley laments that his protagonist, to paraphrase, was a gentle child, why did you leave, you were defenceless, and where was the mirrored shield (784). This quotation refers to Footnote 5, where Perseus manages to slay Medusa by viewing her reflection in his shield, which resonates with Shelley’s lament to Keats if only he could have deflected the criticism and slew the monsters (784).
The devices of light, diffusion, and fragmentation are essential to the thematic foundation and understanding of Shelley’s elegy for Keats. This is further evident in the stanza, to paraphrase: an effective castigation of the critics whom he held responsible for Keats’ melancholy (777). Additionally, the lamentation of the life and death of Keats is at once obvious and profound and is found in the Norton’s Introduction: “Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, / Stains the white radiance of Eternity, / Until Death tramples it to fragments” (776). At last, attributing the morning star and the fragmented young Adonis to Keats lends a religious, pastoral, and Homeric quality that both redeems and elevates the protagonist.