The Real "Dead Poets Society" (and the Odd Body Part, Too)

Today in Literature reminds nHumanities that "on this day in 1821 Percy Shelley's 'Adonais,' his elegy to John Keats, was published in England. A cornerstone of both Romantic poetry and the myth of the Romantic, the poem paints Keats as Adonis in pursuit of Beauty and Truth, brought down by those less noble and talented. This was a fate Shelley predicted for himself, and he died before Keats's gravestone had been erected." (At left, Keats's death mask.)

Keats died from TB in his room above the Spanish Steps in Rome. He was only 25, and he directed that his tombstone read, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Keats is the only one of the famous British Romantic Poets to die from anything approaching natural causes.

Shelley drowned in a storm while boating on the Bay of Spezzia in 1822. When his body washed ashore ten days later, his friends gathered to cremate him there. Present were his widow, Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame, Leigh Hunt, Edward John Trelawny, and Lord Byron, who had asked for Shelley's skull as a remembrance. (He didn't get it. His friends, remembering how he mistreated the skull of a Franciscan monk, decided he couldn't be trusted with it.)

As the flames of Shelley's pyre rose--or so the story goes--Trelawny darted forward and snatched out Shelley's heart (suffering permanent damage to his arm) and gave it to Mary. Some say Mary carried it in her purse for the rest of her life.

Byron's death is yet another example of the extravagant lives these British Romantics led. In 1823, Byron joined the fight for Greek independence, and he died in Missolonghi (1824) from a fever he contracted during his campaign. Although he requested a quiet burial, he had become a Greek national hero and an example of selfless patriotism. His body went back to England, sans the lungs which were gifted to the people of Missolonghi.

Once in England, his body was denied burial in Westminster Abbey, the repository of most of England's beloved figures. (Around 3,300 people are buried there, with many more commemorated by plaques--here's a partial list.) Byron finally received a memorial on the floor of the Abbey 145 years later.