Proserpine (play) - Background

Background

In March 1818 the Shelleys moved to Italy, where their two young children, Clara and William, soon died. Mary entered into a deep depression and became alienated from Percy. Mary recovered to some extent with the birth of Percy Florence later in 1819.

Between 1818 and 1820, she absorbed a considerable amount of drama, reading many of William Shakespeare’s plays, some with Percy. Percy believed that Mary had a talent for dramatic writing, and convinced her to study the great English, French, Latin, and Italian plays as well as dramatic theory. He even sought her advice on his play The Cenci, and she transcribed the manuscript of his drama Prometheus Unbound. The Shelleys also attended operas, ballets, and plays. Percy also encouraged Mary to translate Vittorio Alfieri's play Mirra (1785), a tragedy about father-daughter incest which influenced her own novel Mathilda.

Mary Shelley’s studies were broad during these years. She began to learn Greek in 1820 and read widely. She had also been reading Ovid's Metamorphoses since at least 1815 and continued to do so in 1820. Her other reading included Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophical treatise, Emile (1762) and his sentimental novel, La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), as well as Thomas Day’s children’s book The History of Sandford and Merton (1783–89). Critic Marjean Purinton notes that her reading around the time she was composing Proserpine included "educational treatises and children's literature, replete with moralisms concerning gendered behaviors", as well as her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) and Original Stories from Real Life (1788). These latter were part of the conduct book tradition that challenged the gender roles of women.