Proserpine and Midas

Proserpine and Midas (1820) is a collection of plays by Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Combining Mary¿s blank verse and Percy¿s lyric poems, the Shelleys offer two groundbreaking retellings of classical myth. Together, the plays illuminate the working relationship of a husband and wife who helped define Romanticism, highlighting their individual talents in the process. While Proserpine was published in 1832 in The Winter¿s Wreath, a London periodical, Mary Shelley was unable to find a publisher for Midas, which remained unprinted until the twentieth century. Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, leaves her daughter Proserpine in the care of two trusted nymphs. While the women are out picking flowers, Proserpine is kidnapped by Pluto, the dreaded lord of the underworld. Distraught, Ceres laments the loss of her beloved girl and appeals to Jove for assistance. Proserpine is a retelling of an ancient myth which remains mostly faithful to its sour