“Thoughts and Afflictions”: Reading the Documents of Ophelia’s Madness
Terri Bourus, Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis
In 1997, Margaret Atwood wrote:
What Elizabethan playwrights learned from the Greek classics was not theories of insanity, but [of] dramatic practice—that is, madness as a dandy theatrical element. It focuses the audiences’ attention and increases suspense, since one never knows what a mad person may get up to next. In Hamlet, there are two variations—Hamlet himself, who assumes madness, and Ophelia, who really does go winsomely bonkers. Ophelia’s language is confused and nonsensical, and sometimes lewd, and interspersed with [“snatches of old tunes,”] the madness of song; madness gives her a license to say things that in a sane state she would not be permitted to express.
This paper will examine the three earliest printings of Hamlet, Q1 (1603), Q2 (1604-05), and F1 (1623) in print and in performance in an attempt to answer Atwood’s primary argument, “Ophelia has a lot to answer for.” Critics who favor the status of the second quarto as a text published and sold for private reading have argued that Shakespeare wrote information into his texts to help early modern readers understand Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia as well as the function of “the Gentleman.” But early modern audiences would instinctively been familiar with many of Ophelia’s references, and Players (unlike the words in the printed text of a play—readers’ interpretations notwithstanding) can interpret and reinterpret character in many ways—bringing about a reaction (expected or not—let’s hope NOT) in the receivers of the drama. Because of their shared cultural consciousness, early modern print readers and audiences would have likely understood what Ophelia’s madness represented and, given the significance of the plants, why she gave what she gave to each respective character. Can today’s actors, audiences and readers achieve anywhere near a similar reaction/ understanding? How can we Ophelia know?
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