Part 48: From Maurice Hunt, "Impregnating Ophelia," 2005
...getting playgoers and readers to imagine a pregnant, or carnal,
Ophelia amounts to a dramatic benefit because, at some point
(usually a retrospective moment), the recollection of this identity
obviously compounds the pathos of her personal tragedy.
At the same time, those contemporary consumers of Hamlet aware
of an Elizabethan aesthetics of the pregnant imagination are likely to
question their reconstruction of Ophelia’s sexual status, simply be-
cause they know that her supposed pregnancy could be the result of
the operation of their pregnant minds on the elements of
Shakespeare’s play.
In other words, Shakespeare calls attention to the challenging plastic
quality of mind that he generally seems always to require of his
educated theater readers and playgoers.
Every play in the Shakespeare canon, virtually every Shakespearean
character, becomes richly enjoyable and instructive to the degree
that pregnant minds animate them.
Shakespeare’s urging the pregnant mind to make Ophelia physically
pregnant thus amounts to a singularity in the canon: the signature
Shakespearean dynamic of appreciation of meaning becomes material
in Ophelia’s character. And yet it does not when the viewer realizes
that his or her pregnant imagination has made her so.
Rather than joining Spenser and other purportedly gynephobic early
modern male English authors in making a female character a
scapegoat for masculine ills, Shakespeare on the occasion of
Ophelia’s characterization in Hamlet encourages playgoers and
readers to gain a perspective on the insubstantiality of all
imaginative constructions produced by drama, and literature in
general.
- Maurice Hunt, from "Impregnating Ophelia" [1]
Hunt’s essay is good, but like others (too?) influenced by Freud, he neglects Ophelia’s political loss of innocence — and the way Shakespeare’s use of ambiguity perhaps manifests mystery as a presence of God, in the face of which the appropriate response might be that of Moses with the burning bush: Take off your sandals: step bare-footed and reverently…
NOTES: [1]
Maurice Hunt, from "Impregnating Ophelia" (658-659).
Neophilologus 89, 641–663 (2005).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-005-5284-0
IMAGE: FRANCES MACDONALD MACNAIR (SCOTTISH 1874-1921),
‘GIRL WITH BLUE BUTTERFLIES' (1898) (sometimes (mis-?) titled "Ophelia")
The Taffner Collection
Signed and dated lower centre right FRANCES E MACDONALD 1898.
Public domain (author's life plus 70 years or fewer) via Lyon & Turnbull auction website
https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auctions/the-taffner-collection-370/lot/62
Also available via Wikipedia:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Frances_MacDonald_-_Ophelia_1898.jpg
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INDEX OF OPHELIA POSTS:
My 2023 series on Ophelia, and earlier Ophelia posts:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/10/index-of-ophelia-posts-2023-series-and.html
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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