teachers-guide

methods in madness: thinking with Ophelia POLONIUS: Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. What does "method in madness" mean? What are the "methods of madness" for Hamlet? What are the "methods of madness" for Ophelia? Why do you think Ophelia goes mad? DEATH OF OPHELIA What aspects of Ophelia's madness reappear in this scene? Is her death intentional, accidental, or something in between? SOME POSSIBLE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS RELATED LINKS ON OPHELIA Folger Library Teachers' Gude to Ophelia folger.edu/education/lesson.cfm?lessonid=77 Ophelia in Art Nouveau nouveaunet.com/prbpassion/various1.cfm Zefferelli's Hamlet: Commentary by Frank Kermode geocities.com/queeniemab/ZeffHamlet.htm Flowers in Shakespeare: Commentary on IV.5 huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/Shakespeare/ophelia.htm	MADNESS OF OPHELIA (IV.5) OPHELIA: Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark? QUEEN GERTRUDE: How now, Ophelia! OPHELIA: [Sings] How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon. QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? OPHELIA: Say you? nay, pray you, mark. [Sings] He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. QUEEN GERTRUDE: Nay, but, Ophelia, -- OPHELIA: Pray you, mark. [Sings] White his shroud as the mountain snow, -- [Enter KING CLAUDIUS] QUEEN GERTRUDE : Alas, look here, my lord. OPHELIA : [Sings] Larded with sweet flowers Which bewept to the grave did go With true-love showers. ********************************* OPHELIA: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts. LAERTES: A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted. OPHELIA: There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end, -- [Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. LAERTES: Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favour and to prettiness. DEATH OF OPHELIA (IV.7) QUEEN GERTRUDE: There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.	IMAGINING OPHELIA Artists in the nineteenth century were very taken with the "prettiness" of Ophelia's madness and death. The "pre-Raphaelites" were a group of artists who looked back to the early Renaissance (before Raphael, an important painter of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) for models of simple beauty and grace. JohnWilliam Waterhouse, Ophelia John Everett Millais, Ophelia, Tate Gallery, London, 1851. Odilon Redon, Ophelia, 1910, collection of A.D. Lasker. BEYOND PRETTINESS AND FAVOUR: OPHELIA IN MODERNITY Experimental photographer Victor Burgin did a series of photographs based on Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. This shot combines Vertigo and John Everett Millais's Ophelia. Ken Reinhard and I wrote a book about Shakespeare (a Renaissance author) and Freud (a modern thinker). We chose Victor Burgin's photograph for our cover image because we liked the overlay of Shakespeare, nineteenth century imaginings of Ophelia, and a contemporary re-vision (through film and photography). Some modern films of Hamlet have also tried to rethink or work against the "pretty" Ophelia in favor of stronger, darker, or more troubling images. Helena Bonham-Carter plays Ophelia in the film adapation of Hamlet directed by Franco Zeffirelli in 1990. Commentary on the film by Frank Kermode.

methods in madness:

thinking with Ophelia

POLONIUS: Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

What does "method in madness" mean?

What are the "methods of madness" for Hamlet?

What are the "methods of madness" for Ophelia?

Why do you think Ophelia goes mad?

DEATH OF OPHELIA
What aspects of Ophelia's madness reappear in this scene?

Is her death intentional, accidental, or something in between?

SOME POSSIBLE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS

RELATED LINKS ON OPHELIA

Folger Library Teachers' Gude to Ophelia
folger.edu/education/lesson.cfm?lessonid=77

Ophelia in Art Nouveau
nouveaunet.com/prbpassion/various1.cfm

Zefferelli's Hamlet: Commentary by Frank Kermode
geocities.com/queeniemab/ZeffHamlet.htm

Flowers in Shakespeare: Commentary on IV.5
huntington.org/BotanicalDiv/Shakespeare/ophelia.htm

MADNESS OF OPHELIA (IV.5)

OPHELIA: Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN GERTRUDE: How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA: [Sings]

How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA: Say you? nay, pray you, mark. [Sings]

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Nay, but, Ophelia, --

OPHELIA: Pray you, mark.

[Sings]

White his shroud as the mountain snow, --

[Enter KING CLAUDIUS]

QUEEN GERTRUDE : Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA : [Sings]

Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.

********************************* OPHELIA: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES: A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA: There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end, --

[Sings]

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES: Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.

DEATH OF OPHELIA (IV.7)

QUEEN GERTRUDE: There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

IMAGINING OPHELIA

Artists in the nineteenth century were very taken with the "prettiness" of Ophelia's madness and death. The "pre-Raphaelites" were a group of artists who looked back to the early Renaissance (before Raphael, an important painter of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) for models of simple beauty and grace.

JohnWilliam Waterhouse, Ophelia

John Everett Millais, Ophelia, Tate Gallery, London, 1851.

Odilon Redon, Ophelia, 1910, collection of A.D. Lasker.

BEYOND PRETTINESS AND FAVOUR:
OPHELIA IN MODERNITY

Experimental photographer Victor Burgin did a series of photographs based on Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. This shot combines Vertigo and John Everett Millais's Ophelia.

Ken Reinhard and I wrote a book about Shakespeare (a Renaissance author) and Freud (a modern thinker). We chose Victor Burgin's photograph for our cover image because we liked the overlay of Shakespeare, nineteenth century imaginings of Ophelia, and a contemporary re-vision (through film and photography).

Some modern films of Hamlet have also tried to rethink or work against the "pretty" Ophelia in favor of stronger, darker, or more troubling images.

Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia in Zefferelli's film of Hamlet

Helena Bonham-Carter plays Ophelia in the film adapation of Hamlet directed by Franco Zeffirelli in 1990. Commentary on the film by Frank Kermode.