Midas is a verse drama in blank verse by the Romantic writers Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary wrote the drama and Percy contributed two lyric poems to it. Written in 1820 while the Shelleys were living in Italy, Mary Shelley tried unsuccessfully to have the play published by children's magazines in England in the 1830s; however, it was not published until A. Koszul's 1922 scholarly edition. Whether or not the drama was ever meant to be staged is a point of debate among scholars. The play combines the stories of the musical contest between Apollo and Pan and that of King Midas and his ability to turn everything he touches to gold.
Largely concerned with gender issues, Midas comments on the definitions of femininity and masculinity in the early nineteenth century and the developing ideology of separate spheres which encouraged women to restrict themselves to domestic affairs and men to political affairs. Part of the Romantic interest in rewriting classical myths, Midas focuses on challenging patriarchy and satirising the unbounded accumulation of wealth.
The genre of Midas bears the marks of gender debates, as well, with Percy writing in the traditionally male-dominated form of the lyric and Mary focusing on the details of everyday life in her verse drama. Since the play's first publication in 1922, critics have paid more attention to Percy Shelley's lyrics than Mary Shelley's drama. However, since the 1990s, this trend has reversed itself as scholars explore works of Mary Shelley other than Frankenstein (1818).
By 1816, the Shelleys were living in Italy and in 1818 and 1819, two of their young children died, Clara and William. Mary entered into a deep depression and became alienated from Percy, who was not as deeply affected by the loss of their children.[1] Mary Shelley revived a bit with the birth of Percy Florence later in 1819.[2]
Despite the overwhelming grief caused by the death of her two children, Mary Shelley continued to study and read as she had throughout her life. Between 1818 and 1820, she exposed herself to quite a bit of drama. She read many of William Shakespeare's plays, some with Percy Shelley.[2] Percy believed that Mary had a talent for drama and convinced her to study the great English, French, Latin, and Italian plays as well as drama theory.[2] He even sought her advice regarding his play The Cenci.[3] Less glamorously, Mary transcribed the manuscript of Percy's drama Prometheus Unbound.[4] The Shelleys also attended operas, ballets, and plays.[2]
Mary Shelley wrote Midas in 1820. Miranda Seymour, a Mary Shelley biographer, speculates that she wrote Midas and Proserpine for two young girls she met and befriended, Laurette and Nerina Tighe. They were the daughters of friends of the Shelleys in Italy and their mother was a former pupil of Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft.[6] The same year, she wrote the children's story Maurice for Laurette.
Mary Shelley submitted the play for publication to The Browning Box, edited by Bryan Walter Procter, in 1824; it was rejected. In 1830, she submitted it to Rudolph Ackermann for publication in his children's magazine Forget-Me-Not; it was again rejected. In 1832, she sent it to Alaric Alexander Watts for consideration in his annual Literary Souvenir, however in her letter she suggested that the drama may be more appropriate for the juvenile publications edited by his wife, Priscilla Maden Watts. The drama was first published in 1922 by literary scholar A. Koszul.[5]
In Act I Pan challenges Apollo to a musical contest, with Tmolus as the judge. Tmolus awards the victory to Apollo. Pan challenges his decision, asking the mortal King Midas to decide the contest. Midas has a bias towards Pan and decides in favour of him. Apollo, upset at this mortal's interference in immortal affairs, punishes Midas by turning his ears into ass's ears, saying "thus to the world / Wear thou the marks of what thou art, / Let Pan himself blush at such a judge".[7] Zopyrion, Midas's prime minister, helps the king figure out to hide his ears: they design a crown to hide them. Although Zopyrion is determined to keep the king's secret, he still finds the situation hysterical. When he encounters Asphalion, a courtier, he misunderstands him and thinks that Asphalion also knows the secret. Asphalion discovers he has a secret, but not what it is. After Asphalion leaves, Zopyrion whispers the secret to the "greenest reeds that sway / And nod your feathered heads beneath the sun".[8]Bacchus then arrives, searching for Silenus. Bacchus decides to reward Midas for his hospitality and offers to grant him any wish he wants. Although his prime minister suggests that he wish for his original ears back, Midas wishes that everything he touches be turned to gold. During this conversation, Midas is convinced he hears Zopyrion whispering his secret, but it is really the reeds saying "Midas, the king, has the ears of an ass."
Act II begins with Midas enamored with his new power of turning things to gold. However, his courtiers complain of being forced to wear heavy golden clothing. Midas rebukes them, saying "I am a God!".[9] But Midas himself begins to experience the problems of turning everything he touches to gold: he cannot eat, for example. He starts to regret his wish, saying "Oh! fool! to wish to change all things to gold! / Blind Ideot that I was!".[10] Midas prays to Bacchus to take away his power, begging "Make me a hind, clothe me in ragged skins— / And let my food be bread, unsavoury roots, / But take from me the frightful curse of gold".[11] Midas has his courtiers sacrifice to the gods to see if he can be relieved of his curse; Bacchus relents and tells him to bathe in the river. The courtiers find it strange that he does not remove his crown while he swims; one of them resolves to peek under his crown while he is sleeping. Returning from his swim, Midas celebrates nature, saying gold "is a sordid, base and dirty thing;— / Look at the grass, the sky, the trees, the flowers, / These are Joves treasures & they are not gold".[12]
Mary Shelley described Midas as a "short mythological comic drama in verse".[13] Her efforts to publish it as a children's drama suggest that she thought of it as children's literature. At this time, "instructional" literature for children was most often written by women, who were viewed as having superior knowledge regarding the raising of the young. While placing women in a traditional maternal role, this literature also allowed them the opportunity to participate in the public sphere as authors and directors of morality. Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, had written two such works, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) and Original Stories from Real Life (1788) that she undoubtedly knew. As Purinton writes, "Mary Shelley's seemingly simple plays are complicated by their position with this context of 'instructional' literature at a historical moment when the boundaries of private and public discourse are blurred."[14]
Scholars have disputed whether or not Shelley meant for her play to be staged. Alan Richardson, for example, argues that the play is "lyrical drama" or "mental theater" in the style of Romantic closet drama "with its emphasis on character over plot, on reaction over action, and its turn away from the theater".[15] However, Judith Pascoe challenges this conclusion, pointing to manuscript evidence such as stage directions; she argues that Mary Shelley intended her play to be staged.[16] Literary scholar Jeffrey Cox has argued that Midas, along with Proserpine, Prometheus Unbound and other plays written by the Leigh Hunt circle, were "not a rejection of the stage but an attempt to remake it".[17] Turning from tragedy and the comedy of manners, these writers reinvented drama by writing masques and pastoral dramas. He argues that Midas and Proserpine are "a mythological diptych that indites on stage the forces of oppression".[18] For him, Midas "ends appropriately with Midas giving up his golden touch and turning to celebrate a pastoral world of simplicity and equality".[19]
In the early nineteenth century, lyric poetry was associated with male poets and quotidian poetry (i.e., the poetry of the everyday) with female poets. The division of labour in Midas reflects this trend: Percy contributed the two lyric poems in the drama while Mary's play contains the kind of detail found in the poetry of other women.[20] However, Mary Shelley does not simply accept these gender-genre distinctions. As Richardson explains, "soliloquy is resisted in the first act and exposed in the second act as a questionable and implicitly masculine mode".[15] Furthermore, the disjunction between Percy Shelley's poems, spoken by Apollo and Pan in the first act, and Mary Shelley's verse drama has often bothered critics. Yet, Richardson argues that this was intended, to highlight the difference in poetic mode.[15]
Style and themes
Mary Shelley's gender concerns did not cease with generic issues. In the musical contest between Apollo and Pan in the first act, Apollo is associated with masculine characteristics, such as philosophy, science, and reason, and Pan is associated with feminine characteristics, such as sheep and nature. however, as Purinton notes, "both sing egocentric lyrics that boast of their 'instruments' and their deeds".[21] When Apollo wins, the play appears to celebrate "male superiority". However, Pan appeals the decision to King Midas, who reverses the decision in Pan's favour, for which he is then punished.[21] Purinton argues that the play therefore breaks down traditional gender distinctions, portraying characters with mixed gender signals. In this way, she writes, "as cross-dressed dramaturgy, then, Midas is a comedy about women's issues played out on male bodies".[21] For her, the play dramatizes the problems with the nineteenth-century ideology of separate spheres, where women were expected to remain in the private, domestic sphere and men were expected to participate in the political, public sphere.[22]
Shelley also uses the figure of Midas to comment on capitalism and imperialism. Midas's initial joy in acquiring gold is symbolic of contemporary England, "racing headlong into its new identity as an industrialized, consumerist society financed by political and mercantile imperialism".[23] For Shelley, these commercial efforts are particularly masculine; Midas's ears, which symbolise emasculation, are juxtaposed to masculinising gold.[24] Furthermore, Shelley suggests that when political leaders become feminised, they lose their political power. She draws an analogy between Midas and George III and George IV, British kings who were often viewed as feminised.[25]
Like Percy Shelley, John Keats, and Lord Byron, Mary Shelley was rewriting the classical myths; however, like other Romantic women writers, she was challenging patriarchy in particular.[26]Midas is not just a commentary on Ovid's version of the tale in the Metamorphoses; it is also a commentary on Geoffrey Chaucer's version in The Wife of Bath's Tale. In Ovid's version it is Midas's barber who cannot keep the secret of his ears; in Chaucer's version, it is his wife.[27] In Mary Shelley's version, it is Midas's prime minister who cannot keep the secret; however, Midas is convinced a woman has revealed his secret and a courtier explicitly states "There is no woman here".[28]
Proserpine and Midas are often seen as a pair of contrasting plays. Proserpine is a play of female bonding, while Midas is a male-dominated drama; male poets participate in a contest in Midas while in Proserpine female characters participate in communal storytelling; "where Midas lives in his golden palace imagining himself at the center of an all-powerful court, Ceres laments leaving the pastoral enclave she shares with Proserpine for Jove's court"; Midas focuses on gold, while the women in Proserpine enjoy flowers; and "where the society of Midas is marked by egotism, greed, and strife, the female society of Proserpine values community, gift-giving, and love".[19]
Reception
When A. Koszul first published an edited version of Midas in 1922, he argued "that the little classical fancies which Mrs. Shelley never ventured to publish are quite as worthy of consideration as her more ambitious prose works".[29] However, his "Introduction" to the play speaks mostly of Percy Shelley and his contribution to Mary Shelley's works. In fact, as he explains, he has decided to publish to contribute to the Percy Shelley centenary.[30] Since their original publication, neither Midas nor Proserpine has received much critical attention. Critics have either only paid attention to Percy Shelley's poems or dismissed the plays. Literary critic Elizabeth Nitchie wrote that the plays are "distinguished only by the lyrics that [Percy] Shelley wrote for them" and Sylva Norman contends that they "do not really call for analytical and comparative study".[31] However, since the 1990s, beginning with the publication of The Other Mary Shelley, more attention has been paid to Mary Shelley's "other" works, such as her dramas.
Cox, Jeffrey N. "Staging Hope: Genre, Myth, and Ideology in the Dramas of the Hunt Circle". Texas Studies in Language and Literature 38 (1996): 245–65.
Pascoe, Judith. "Proserpine and Midas". The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. Ed. Esther Schor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN0-521-00770-4.
Purinton, Marjean D. "Polysexualities and Romantic Generations in Mary Shelley's Mythological Dramas Midas and Proserpine". Women's Writing 6.3 (1999): 385–411.
Richardson, Alan. "Proserpine and Midas: Gender, Genre, and Mythic Revisionism in Mary Shelley's Dramas". The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein. Eds. Audrey A. Fisch, Anne K. Mellor, and Esther H. Schor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN0-19-507740-7.
Seymour, Miranda. Mary Shelley. New York: Grove Press, 2000. ISBN0-8021-3948-5.
Shelley, Mary. Proserpine & Midas: Two Unpublished Mythological Dramas by Mary Shelley. Ed. A. Koszul. London: Humphrey Milford, 1922.
Midas was the name of a king in Phrygia with whom several myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house.
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of the writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Gothic is a 1986 British psychological horror film directed by Ken Russell, starring Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley, Myriam Cyr as Claire Clairmont and Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori. It features a soundtrack by Thomas Dolby, and marks Richardson's and Cyr's film debut.
Prometheus Unbound is a four-act lyrical drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley, first published in 1820. It is concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus, who defies the gods and gives fire to humanity, for which he is subjected to eternal punishment and suffering at the hands of Zeus. It is inspired by the classical Prometheia, a trilogy of plays attributed to Aeschylus. Shelley's play concerns Prometheus' release from captivity, but unlike Aeschylus' version, there is no reconciliation between Prometheus and Jupiter (Zeus). Instead, Jupiter is abandoned by his supportive elements and falls from power, which allows Prometheus to be released.
Metamorphoses is a play by the American playwright and director Mary Zimmerman, adapted from the classic Ovid poem Metamorphoses. The play premiered in 1996 as Six Myths at Northwestern University and later the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. The play opened off-Broadway in October 2001 at the Second Stage Theatre. It transferred to Broadway on 21 February 2002 at the Circle in the Square Theatre produced by Roy Gabay and Robyn Goodman. That year it won several Tony Awards.
Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter in Greek mythology, appears in films, works of literature, and in popular culture, both as a goddess character and through the symbolic use of her name. She becomes the queen of the underworld through her abduction by Hades, the god of the underworld. The myth of her abduction represents her dual function as the as chthonic (underworld) and vegetation goddess: a personification of vegetation, which shoots forth in Spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest. Proserpina is the Roman equivalent.
The Maid's Metamorphosis is a late Elizabethan stage play, a pastoral first published in 1600. The play, "a comedy of considerable merit," was published anonymously, and its authorship has been a long-standing point of dispute among scholars.
Betty T. Bennett (1935–2006) was Distinguished Professor of Literature and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1985–1997) at American University. She was previously Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences and acting provost of Pratt Institute from 1979 to 1985. Among her numerous awards and honors, Bennett was a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities and fellow of American Council of Learned Societies. She won the Keats-Shelley Association of America - Distinguished Scholar Award in 1992 and was Founding President, Phi Beta Kappa, Zeta Chapter at American University. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Bennett graduated from Brooklyn College magna cum laude and later received a master's degree (1962) and PhD (1970) in English and American literature from New York University.
Proserpine is a verse drama written for children by the English Romantic writers Mary Shelley and her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary wrote the blank verse drama and Percy contributed two lyric poems. Composed in 1820 while the Shelleys were living in Italy, it is often considered a partner to the Shelleys' play Midas. Proserpine was first published in the London periodical The Winter's Wreath in 1832. Whether the drama was ever intended to be staged is a point of debate among scholars.
Midas is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by John Lyly. It is arguably the most overtly and extensively allegorical of Lyly's allegorical plays.
This is a bibliography of works by Mary Shelley, the British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works and for Frankenstein. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley’s achievements, however. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826), and her final two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46) support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and Enlightenment political theories.
"Maurice, or the Fisher's Cot" is a children's story by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Written in 1820 for Laurette Tighe, a daughter of her friends Margaret King and George William Tighe, Mary Shelley tried to have it published by her father, William Godwin, but he refused. The text was lost until 1997, when a manuscript copy was discovered in Italy.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.
History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni is a travel narrative by the English Romantic authors Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Published anonymously in 1817, it describes two trips taken by Mary, Percy, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont: one across Europe in 1814, and one to Lake Geneva in 1816. Divided into three sections, the text consists of a journal, four letters, and Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc". Apart from the poem, preface, and two letters, the text was primarily written and organised by Mary Shelley. In 1840 she revised the journal and the letters, republishing them in a collection of Percy Shelley's writings.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem."
Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843 is a travel narrative by the British Romantic author Mary Shelley. Issued in 1844, it is her last published work. Published in two volumes, the text describes two European trips that Mary Shelley took with her son, Percy Florence Shelley, and several of his university friends. Mary Shelley had lived in Italy with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, between 1818 and 1823. For her, Italy was associated with both joy and grief: she had written much while there but she had also lost her husband and two of her children. Thus, although she was anxious to return, the trip was tinged with sorrow. Shelley describes her journey as a pilgrimage, which will help cure her depression.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
The Flaying of Marsyas is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Titian, probably painted between about 1570 and his death in 1576, when in his eighties. It is now in the Archbishop's Palace in Kroměříž, Czech Republic and belongs to the Archbishopric of Olomouc. It is one of Titian's last works, and may be unfinished, although there is a partial signature on the stone in the foreground.
Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde, BWV 201, is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, on a libretto by Picander. It is a dramma per musica, likely composed for a public performance in 1729, around which time its oldest extant printed libretto was published. The text, titled Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan, is based on the "Ears of a Donkey" story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, and mocks unsophisticated music in favour of a more intelligent composition style.
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