I - OPHELIA

Summary

“O rose of May! Sweet Ophelia!”

AND so you ask me, my friend—indeed, I may almost say that you insist—after our late talk over her, that I should put down in writing my idea of Ophelia, so that you may make, as you say, a new study of her character.

Accustomed as you are to write fluently all your thoughts, you will hardly believe what a difficult task you have set me. My views of Shakespeare's women have been wont to take their shape in the living portraiture of the stage, and not in words. I have, in imagination, lived their lives from the very beginning to the end; and Ophelia, as I have pictured her, is so unlike what I hear and read about her, and have seen represented on the stage, that I can scarcely hope to make any one think of her as I do. It hurts me to hear her spoken of, as she often is, as a weak creature, wanting in truthfulness, in purpose, in force of character, and only interesting when she loses the little wits she had. And yet who can wonder that a character so delicately outlined, and shaded in with strokes so fine, should be often gravely misunderstood?