she whom we saw every day
In the early months after Mary Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley returned to
England they were both afflicted with the deaths of women with whom their
lives were closely interknit. On 9 October 1816 Fanny Godwin, Mary's
half-sister, committed suicide. A month later Harriet Shelley, P. B. Shelley's legal
wife, drowned herself in the Serpentine River in Hyde Park. Those
experiences would appear to be registered in this elegiac paragraph.
- Critical Approaches:
- Themes:
