No More Water, Bring Fire: Taylor Swift’s Salvage of a Shakespearean Tragedy
Picture this: a woman enrobed in flowers with a grief-stricken expression painted across her face as she floats over a water body. You probably thought of the iconic painting of Ophelia by the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais, didn't you? We've all seen this painting, whether or not we know about the story of the tragic character of Ophelia, who barely finds a place in the pages of (and the hearts of characters) in Shakespeare's Hamlet. As an English literature student who has done a detailed study of the text and considers this play my all- time favourite literary text, it has been long overdue that I did a comparative analysis of this overlooked character as depicted in Shakespeare's play vs Taylor Swift's latest hit: The Fate of Ophelia . In the play , Ophelia seems to float through the world, bowing down to the whims and fancies of those around her, without any standing of her own. Her identity is shaped entirely by the pressures around her, and she...