English Literature / Unit 13 ENL 1247 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Romantics and Death
Captions available
The idea
The second generation died young: Keats of tuberculosis in Rome at twenty-five, Shelley drowned off Italy at twenty-nine, Byron of fever in Greece at thirty-six. Death runs through their poems, from Keats being "half in love with easeful Death" to Shelley's Adonais.
In practice
Three early deaths.
Where people slip
Do not read every poem as biography.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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