Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Excerpts from Elaine Showalter, “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism” [1]: …Though she is neglected in criticism, Ophelia is probably the most frequently illustrated and cited of Shakespeare’s heroines.(282) …Why has she been such a potent and obsessive figure in our cultural mythology? [...] how should feminist criticism represent Ophelia in its own discourse? What is our responsibility towards her as character and as woman? …Shakespeare gives us very little information from which to imagine a past for Ophelia.  [...] Her tragedy is subordinated in the play; unlike Hamlet, she does not struggle with moral choices or alternatives. [283] [PF note: Showalter’s essay is an important one, but on this point I would disagree: Ophelia struggles to know what to think of Hamlet’s love and perhaps her good fortune, to grasp what it may mean to become Denmark’s next queen; she struggles against disapproval of her brother and father, against ...

Excerpts from Elaine Showalter, “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism” [1]: …Though she is neglected in criticism, Ophelia is probably the most frequently illustrated and cited of Shakespeare’s heroines.(282) …Why has she been such a potent and obsessive figure in our cultural mythology? [...] how should feminist criticism represent Ophelia in its own discourse? What is our responsibility towards her as character and as woman? …Shakespeare gives us very little information from which to imagine a past for Ophelia.  [...] Her tragedy is subordinated in the play; unlike Hamlet, she does not struggle with moral choices or alternatives. [283] [PF note: Showalter’s essay is an important one, but on this point I would disagree: Ophelia struggles to know what to think of Hamlet’s love and perhaps her good fortune, to grasp what it may mean to become Denmark’s next queen; she struggles against disapproval of her brother and father, against her...