Keats's epitaph and Shelley's rebuttal

CONTEXT Keats died in February 1821 and was buried in Rome with the epitaph he composed: 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water.' He meant it as a bitter statement about his obscurity and early death—his name would be forgotten as quickly as water erases marks. Shelley, devastated by Keats's death, wrote *Adonais* (1821) as an elegy, and this fragment captures the core argument of that longer work.

Shelley doesn't reject Keats's epitaph; he rewrites its meaning. The poem acknowledges the inscription's truth—yes, the name was written on water—but then performs a miracle: Death itself intervenes 'in remorse' and freezes the stream into crystal. What was meant as erasure becomes preservation. Shelley is arguing that Keats's early death, far from obscuring him, has actually immortalized him. The cruelty (the 'fell slaughter' of his youth) becomes the mechanism of eternal fame.

Technical reversal through water-to-crystal imagery

The poem's power lies in a single sustained metaphor: water as the medium of erasure, then as the substance that can be transformed. 'Writ on water' is inherently unstable—writing on water leaves no trace. But Shelley introduces 'winter' (death) as a freezing agent. When water freezes into crystal, it becomes transparent but permanent; what was fluid and fugitive becomes solid and legible.

Notice the verb choice: 'blazoning' (to display prominently, as on a coat of arms). The name doesn't merely survive; it's now emblazoned, made heraldic and ceremonial. Shelley also repeats the entire first stanza, a structural choice that mirrors the crystallization itself—the words, like the frozen water, are held in place through repetition, refusing to disperse. By the fragment's end, Keats's name has moved from water to crystal to heraldic blazon to mythological name (*Adonais*). Each transformation elevates it further.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment on Keats

Keats's epitaph

Shelley quotes Keats's actual tombstone inscription verbatim. Keats requested 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'—a statement of erasure that haunted him about his literary legacy.

'Here lieth One whose name was writ on water.

But, ere the breath that could erase it blew,

Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,

Death's reversal

The paradox: Death usually erases; here Death preserves. Shelley inverts Keats's pessimism by making mortality the agent of immortality instead of oblivion.

Death's reversal

The paradox: Death usually erases; here Death preserves. Shelley inverts Keats's pessimism by making mortality the agent of immortality instead of oblivion.

Death, the immortalizing winter, flew

Athwart the stream,—and time's printless torrent grew

A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name

Transformation to crystal

'Printless torrent' (time with no lasting mark) becomes 'a scroll of crystal' (permanent record). Shelley moves from water imagery (erasure) to crystal (preservation), reversing Keats's fear.

Adonais substitution

Shelley names Keats 'Adonais'—the idealized youth from Ovid and Milton. This mythological elevation transforms the biographical fact of Keats's death into eternal archetype.

Of Adonais!

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation