1
Contents
Page:
List of Plates 2
Introduction 3
Chapter One
:
Theoretical Framework: the Theories of Meyer Schapiro
6
§1 Schapiro’s theory: The social context influences the artist
7
§2 Conclusion
10
Chapter Two: Illustrations of Hamlet: the Diversities of Ophelia 11
§1 The Rococo Period
11
§1.1The social background of the Rococo Period
11
§1.2 The interpretation of the character Ophelia
13
§1.3 Francis Hayman’s artistic milieu
13
§2 The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 16
§2.1The social influences on the art of the Pre-Raphaelites 1
6
§2.2 T
he obsession with the death of a young woman
17
§2.3 The pictorialism of Ophelia: a form of covert intermediality? 20
§2.4 Millais’ painting of Ophelia
21
§3 Conclusion
23
Chapter Three: Illustrations of Macbeth: the revolution of an immoral woman 24
§1 The Sturm und Drang movement 25
§1.1 Artistic notions of the Stürmer und Dränger 25
§1.2 The interpretation of Lady Macbeth as an evil woman 26
§1.3 Henry Fuseli
’
s painting 28
§2 Aestheticism 30
§2.1 Aesthetic values of the Aesthetic Movement 30
§2.2 The Aesthetes’ interpretation of Lady Macbeth 31
§2.3 Valentine Walter Bromley’s illustration of Lady Macbeth 32
§3Conclusion
33
Conclusion 35
Plates 37
2
List of Plates
Plate 1: Francis Hayman (1708-1776). Hamlet.
The Play-scene from Hamlet (3.2). Thomas Hanmer edition of Shakespeare (1744).
Engraving by Hubert Gravelot (Folger Shakespeare Library).
Plate 2: Hubert Gravelot (1699-1773). Macbeth.
The Banquet-scene from Macbeth (3.4). Lewis Theobald’s 2
ndedition of
Shakespeare: Works (1740).
Engraving by Hubert Gravelot.
Plate 3: John Everett Millais (1829-1896).
Ophelia (1851-52).
Oil on canvas (London, Tate).
Plate 4: Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
The Death of Ophelia (1853).
Oil on canvas (Paris, Louvre).
Plate 5: Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).
Garrick and Mrs Pritchard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (1766).
Watercolour drawing.
Plate 6: Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).
Lady Macbeth seizing the Daggers (1812).
Oil on canvas (Tate, London).
Plate 7: James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).
The Peacock Room doors (1876).
Painting on wood.
Plate 8: Valentine Walter Bromley (1848-1877).
3
Introduction
To speak of paintings illustrative of Shakespeare is to misapply terms. He is a school of Painting himself; but that art cannot illustrate him. All, and much more than the pencil can express, is
conceived by the most negligent reader of his Works. The Painter's Art is but to fix the limited degrees of Passion that the language of the Poet puts us into complete possession of. (qtd. in Altick 260)
Even today, readers can extract contemporary morals, values and lessons from Shakespeare's
seventeenth-century plays. For example, we analyze his plays on present-day notions such as homosexuality, New
Historicism, Marxism, or feminism, etc. Earlier readers also considered 'modern ideas' when reading his
plays. In every art period readers put a contemporary meaning to Shakespeare's works. Artists are inspired by
Shakespeare's plays. As Altick points out:
Not surprisingly, pictures from Shakespeare accounted for about one-fifth – some
2,300 – of the total number of literary paintings recorded between 1760 and 1900.
They are impressive graphic evidence of the age's conviction that Shakespeare was
incomparably the supreme poet of England. (Altick 255)
The artists translate Shakespeare’s work into paintings which reflect the contemporary interpretations of his
plays. Furthermore, the illustrations reflect the artistic codes of the period in which it is painted. Researching
illustrators of different art periods, who illustrated a certain text, can give a better understanding of the
artists' varying interpretations of that text. The illustrations show the artists' ideas, their aesthetic notions and
influences, prevailing cultural codes and the contemporary feelings about the text. My thesis focuses on the
question: in what way are illustrations of the female characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth
influenced by the aesthetic influences and cultural codes of particular art periods?
Meyer Schapiro's theory about the influence of a social context on the relationship between two
media is used for the theoretical framework of this dissertation. Schapiro's theory states that there are two
historical factors that influence the form and content of an illustration. The first factor is “the changes in
meaning of a text for successive illustrators” (Schapiro 15). An artist from one art period might put a
different interpretation on the text than an artist from another historical art period, which can be attributed to
the cultural codes by which they are influenced. For example, there are not many pictures of Ophelia before
1770. She was thought to be an insignificant, minor, character and readers disapproved of her madness and
eventual suicide. Hence, Ophelia was not often depicted in illustrations of Hamlet. However, in the Romantic
Period readers sympathized with Ophelia. As Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) stated:
4
Her death was seen by artists as tragic and against poetic justice. The tragic and 'unjust' death of Ophelia was
romanticized by illustrators and she became a much portrayed subject. The second factor that Schapiro
mentions is “the changes in style of representation” (Schapiro 15). In every art movement, a group of artists
agrees on general principles about art. These aesthetic norms are then applied in paintings and illustrations.
The various art periods have different aesthetic values and therefore distinct styles of representation, which is
reflected in the paintings. The aesthetic norms and cultural codes that are significant to the artists influence
the subject of the painting and the style of representation.
The focus of this thesis is on the female characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth.
Researching the concept of feminism in literature is a popular subject nowadays. Academics even discuss the
role of women in Shakespeare's seventeenth-century plays, although this was not a big issue in his time.
Women could not even perform Shakespeare's plays. They were not allowed to act in Shakespeare's time;
instead, male actors would dress like women and play the female characters. In general women had small
roles in Shakespeare’s play; he did not give much text to the female characters in his plays. I am eager to
learn more about changing attitudes towards the women in Shakespeare’s plays and how these attitudes are
reflected in the visual arts. This thesis concentrates on the role of Ophelia in Hamlet and Lady Macbeth in
Macbeth
and explores the ways in which the illustrations reflect the artists’ contemporary ideas about these
two characters. It discusses how the role of these women in Shakespeare’s plays is interpreted differently in
the various art periods due to changing cultural codes and aesthetic values.
This thesis discusses Hamlet, since Ophelia, the female character in the play, is most often portrayed
by artists. Altick states that “pictures of Ophelia constituted the most popular single subject of English
literary painting” (Altick 299). As stated above, artists differ in their interpretation of her role in Hamlet.
Ophelia is often idealized as a dependent and delicate woman. To the contrary, Macbeth is chosen for this
dissertation, since Lady Macbeth is not a typical example of an ideal and honorable woman. It will be
intriguing to see how this kind of woman is portrayed throughout the different art periods. It is fascinating to
see how these two different kinds of women are portrayed by artists of the various art periods.
In the first chapter of my thesis the theoretical framework for this dissertation is discussed. The
theory by Meyer Schapiro about the difference in meaning of a text for artists of successive art periods and
the influence of aesthetic norms of art movements on the style of representation of an illustration is explained
in this chapter. In the following two chapters, Schapiro’s theory is then applied to representations of Hamlet
and Macbeth. First, illustrations of these plays by artists of several historical art periods are selected. The
first chapter discusses the illustration for Hamlet (1744) by Francis Hayman and the painting Ophelia
(1851-52) by John Everett Millais. In the second chapter, I will explore Henry Fuseli’s Garrick and Mrs Pritchard
as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
(1766) and Valentine Walter Bromley’s Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (1876).
I will assess in each chapter the way these illustrations are influenced by the artists’ contemporary
5
6
Chapter One
Theoretical Framework: the Theories of Meyer Schapiro
What is intermediality and what is the importance of an intermedial study, the study of word-image
relations? Intermediality is a relatively new research field. In an intermedial study some aspects of the
relation between, for example, literature and the visual arts are explored. By exploring this relationship
between two media, we get a better understanding of the media themselves. For example, when researching
the relations between art and literature, one gets a better insight into the interpretation of the literary work by
the artist and thus a better understanding of the literary work itself, or, one gets a wider understanding of the
work of art by comprehending its relationship with the literary work. Diverse illustrations of a scene in a play
will reflect the different interpretations of that scene by the artists and as such will give a better
understanding of the dramatic work itself and its various aspects. An artist is influenced in his interpretation
of the play by the social codes and the aesthetic values in his period. Intermediality between art and literature
is also affected by a social context. This chapter explores the notion that external influences may have an
effect on the intermediality between art and literature as is demonstrated in the theories of Meyer Schapiro.
In intermedial studies the relations between two or more media are explored. This relation between
two media is known as intermediality, which is “a particular relation [...] between conventionally distinct
media of expression or communication” (37)
1. This definition of intermediality is not yet complete; Werner
Wolf states that intermediality should be “further specified as a phenomenon that must be verifiable to a
certain extent” (37). For example, in the metaphorical phrase “the music of Shakespeare’s poetry” (36) there
is no literal involvement of music; there is not an actual intermedial relation between music and poetry.
There are differences in opinion about what a medium exactly is, but I will use Wolf’s definition of a
medium, which is “a conventionally distinct means of communication, specified not only by particular
channels (or one channel) of communication but also by the use of one or more semiotic systems serving for
the transmission of cultural 'messages'” (Wolf 35-36). Both texts and pictures are media, according to this
definition, since they communicate, by means of signs and symbols a cultural message to the readers or
viewers. The definition of intermediality corresponds to the definition of intertextuality, since intermediality
has many similarities with intertextuality. Chris Baldick explains that intertextuality is “a term coined by
Julia Kristeva to designate the various relationships that a given text may have with other texts” (Baldick
112). Julia Kristeva herself explains that the term intertextuality “denotes [the] transpositions of one (or
several) sign-system(s) into another; […] it specifies that the passage from one signifying system to another
demands a new articulation of the thetic – of enunciative and denotative positionality” (Kristeva 111). When
a writer transforms, refers to or borrows from another text in his own writing, intertextuality defines the
relationships between these texts; it defines the set of relations a text has with other texts. Both intertextuality
and intermediality refer to a relation between two or more media, whereby intertextuality only refers to the
1
7
relationship between texts and intermediality to a variety of media. As Wolf states:
'Intertextuality' and 'intermediality' are indeed both forms of what, in the absence of a better
term, one may call 'intersemiotic relations'. They both consist in a relation between two or
more 'semiotic units' (be they individual 'texts', semiotic genres or systems). Intertextuality is
thereby the mono-medial (verbal), intermediality the cross-medial variant of intersemiotic
relations. (Wolf 46)
Intermediality resembles intertextuality in that they are both forms of “intersemiotic relations” (46), however
a distinction can be made in the media between which they form a relationship. According to James Porter,
researching intertextuality shows the social environment that shaped the text:
By identifying and stressing the intertextual nature of discourse [...] we shift our
attention away from the writer as individual and focus more on the sources and social
contexts from which the writer's discourse arises. According to this view, authorial
intention is less significant than social context; the writer is simply a part of a
discourse tradition, a member of a team, and a participant in a community of
discourse that creates its own collective meaning. (Porter 35)
The writer is influenced by his community and other writers – the social context – in his work. The same can
be said about artists; they are influenced by the cultural codes in their society, the works of other artists and
by the aesthetic norms of the art movement they are involved in. A study of the intermediality between
Shakespeare’s texts and Shakespeare illustrations reveals the social context that shaped the illustrations. It
shows the influence of the social environment on the artist. Furthermore, an intermedial study reveals the
changing views about the text for successive illustrators which are reflected in their illustrations.
This chapter presents the theoretical framework for my honours dissertation. I use one theoretical
source for my thesis. This source is a critical approach to illustrations provided by Schapiro, which is
significant for my thesis, since it discusses the influences of society on an illustration of a text and it
discusses the importance of the social context for an artist. Schapiro names three social factors that create
differences between text and illustration and between the various illustrations of the text themselves. Since
my dissertation looks at the influence of the art periods’ social context on the artist, this source will be
helpful.
§1 Schapiro’s theory: The social context influences the artist
8
Style, Artist and Society.
Schapiro states that differences between illustrations of a certain text are the result
of “new norms of representation as well as [...] a fresh understanding of the text. Though we speak of it as an
aesthetic change in style of art, we recognize in it also a change in general outlook and in the attitude to the
particular class of objects represented” (Schapiro 81). The changing cultural codes, aesthetic values and
attitudes of the illustrators towards the text and the “objects represented” (81) result in differing aesthetic
aspects in the illustrations, so the statement agrees with the fact that illustrations are influenced by the social
context. Schapiro states that not only do illustrations differ from other illustrations, but that elements in the
illustrations can slightly deviate from the text as well:
Besides the differences between text and picture arising from the conciseness or
generality of the word and from the resources peculiar to verbal and visual art, there
are historical factors to consider: (a) the changes in meaning of a text for successive
illustrators, though the words remain the same, and (b) the changes in style of
representation, which affect the choice of details and their expressive import. (Schapiro
14-15)
This statement identifies three reasons why illustrations might differ from the text. First of all, text and
illustration are two different media each with their own characteristics and peculiarities, which, when the
picture illustrates the text, can create a difference between the two. An example of a difference between text
and illustration is that a text best represents temporal succession, a progression of events in time, whereas a
picture can (usually) only represent one moment in time. A picture, however, can give a better idea about the
spatial organization of a scene. According to James Heffernan this rule was defined by “Leon Battista
Alberti's De Pictura (1435): a painting represents what can be seen from one point of view at one moment of
time” (qtd. in Heffernan 38). This concept has been maintained since the Renaissance Period. In the
Eighteenth Century, G.E. Lessing wrote in Laocoon, his treatise on the subject of literature and the visual
arts: “Succession of time [...] is the province of the poet just as space is that of the painter. It is an intrusion
of the painter into the domain of the poet, which good taste can never sanction, when the painter combines in
one and the same picture two points necessarily separate in time” (Lessing 91). An illustration can differ
from the text it illustrates, since the pictorial medium has other characteristics than the verbal medium.
The second reason why, according to Schapiro, multiple illustrations of a certain text can differ from
each other is “the changes in meaning of a text for successive illustrators, though the words remain the same”
(Schapiro 15). As cultural codes change, so do the interpretations of a text. A reader applies modern
9
Schapiro and states regarding the research into intermedial relations between art and literature that this
research:
Attempts to explain (parts of) works of art and literature and/or their
interconnections, and tries to highlight their meanings and relevance by relating them
to certain contexts. [...] It implies the notion that works of art and literature and their
constitutive elements are dialogically related to contexts, contexts which motivate
them and to which they respond, thereby influencing, modifying or confirming them.
(Wolf 16)
The influence that contexts have on the relation between literature and art are explained in an intermedial
study. Illustrators respond to the cultural codes and aesthetic values of the period they live in or the art
movement they are motivated by. The context for the relation between literature and art might, therefore, be
the various art periods that have influenced the artists, which resulted in different intermedial relations
between the text and the paintings. Wolf mentions that art and literature are “dialogically related to the
context” (Wolf 160). Adapted from Manfred Pfister’s ‘Intertextual Scales,’ which “delineate general kinds of
textual interaction” (Robillard 56), Valerie Robillard explains the term dialogicity for the intermedial relation
between a poem and an artwork, as follows: dialogicity is “the manner in which the poet creates a 'semantic'
tension between the poem and the artwork by casting the latter in a new, opposing framework” (Robillard
59). For illustrations of a novel, the same can be said; by casting the text in a new framework, a new
understanding or interpretation of the text, the illustration creates a new semantic tension. Wolf's statement
confirms that the new semantic tension created by the relation between literature and art is influenced by the
context, the art period. Illustrators' contemporary thoughts about the text result in small differences in
interpretation of aspects in the text which can be seen in the illustrations of that text.
10
the illustrator in his illustration of the text. Schapiro presents two specific influences of a social context that
shape the intermediality: a change in the interpretation of the text and the contemporary style of
representation. These are the two influences I am going to explore in my thesis for illustrations of Hamlet
and Macbeth. Schapiro identified three reasons why illustrations might differ from the text and from each
other: the different particularities of the two media text and illustration, the new interpretation of the text and
the different style of representation.
§2 Conclusion
11
Chapter Two
Illustrations of Hamlet: the Diversities of Ophelia
It is fascinating to see how artists have portrayed the character of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Until
the Romantic Period, Ophelia was not seen as a popular character. From the Romantic Period onward, this
changed dramatically. Of all the pictures of Hamlet, Ophelia is the most depicted. She is the most popular
character of Shakespeare in art. The two pictures that are explored in this chapter represent the two different
views about her. I will discuss Francis Hayman’s depiction of the Mousetrap-scene in Hamlet (1744) from
the Rococo Period (1725-1775). This was the first illustration in which Ophelia appears and the Rococo
Period was an aesthetic period in which the character of Ophelia was not appreciated. The second picture I
am going to explore is John Everett Millais’ painting Ophelia (1851-52). His painting is perhaps the
best-known painting of Ophelia in the drowning scene. This painting is influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood (1848-1854), an art period during which Ophelia became a very popular subject. I will explore
how Ophelia is portrayed in these pictures and why she is portrayed in such a fashion. In this chapter, I will
look at the interpretation of the character of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and the visual
representation of Ophelia in the Rococo Period and by the Pre-Raphaelites in the Romantic Period.
Furthermore, I will explore how the social background of these periods shaped the ideas about art and how
the artists were influenced by society’s ideas in their pictures. I explain the extent to which depictions of
Ophelia are subject to the artists’ difference in interpretation of her character and difference in style of
representation due to the art period in which they live.
§1 The Rococo Period
§1.1The social background of the Rococo Period
The Rococo was an art style that began in France. At that time, France was in the grip of the French
Revolution. Arnold Hauser states that this was a time of change in power from the aristocrats to the middle
class:
In the whole history of art and culture, the transfer of leadership from one social
class to another has seldom taken place with such absolute exclusiveness as here,
where the aristocracy is completely displaced by the middle class and the change in
taste, which puts expression in the place of decoration, could not possibly be any
clearer. (Hauser 2)
12
Sentiments are asserted and emphasized, not because they are suddenly experienced more
strongly and more deeply, but are exaggerated by auto-suggestion, because they represent an
attitude opposed to the aristocratic outlook on life. The so long despised bourgeois looks at
himself admiringly in the mirror of his own spiritual life, and the more seriously he takes his
feelings, moods and impulses, the more important he appears to himself. (Hauser 57)
Art follows the sentiments in society and opposes the former aesthetic notions. According to Houser,
“inwardness and expressiveness became artistic criteria” (Houser 58). The artists’ aim was to express passion
and arouse sympathies. Houser explains that to “hold back from the expression of feeling now means to
forgo artistic influence altogether, and to be without feeling means to be dull (Houser 58). The emotionalism
and expression of feelings in art and literature were crucial aesthetic norms in the Rococo Period. Another
element in the Rococo Period is that “the public look[ed] for […] the praise of virtue and the condemnation
of vice” (Houser 58) in art and literature. Artists wanted to demonstrate moral excellence in their works, an
example of the ideal society. The style of representation of pictures in the Rococo Period is also in strong
contrast with the former art style of the Baroque Period. For example, one of the distinguishing features of
the Rococo style is the S-curve, the serpentine line. The curves of this line were associated with femininity.
William Park remarks about this use of the S-curve:
The predominance of such S-curves in the rococo contrasts to the diagonal constructions
favoured by the baroque. As a result the baroque seems strong and tectonic in comparison to
the soft and fluid – again, conventionally feminine – rococo. (Park 19)
The Rococo style was regarded as effeminate; the feminine curves of the S-line are in strong contrast with
the straight lines used in the Baroque Period.
Painting theatrical settings was popular in England during the Rococo Period. William Hogarth was
one of the first to illustrate English literature by means of depicting the stage performances. Richard Altick
states that “theatrical pictures, first character portraits and then representations of scenes as well, continued
for more than half a century to be the chief link between the painted and the written (and in this case
13
§1.2 The interpretation of the character Ophelia
The audience in the Eighteenth Century did not think Ophelia was an important character in the play. Her
role in the play was not yet as popular as it would become. Of course she only has a very small part to play in
Hamlet
; she does not have much text. Elaine Showalter states that:
Shakespeare gives us very little information from which to imagine a past for Ophelia. She
appears in only five of the play’s twenty scenes; the pre-play course of her love story with
Hamlet is known only by a few ambiguous flashbacks. Her tragedy is subordinated in the
play; unlike Hamlet, she does not struggle with moral choices or alternatives. (Showalter 78)
Until the Nineteenth Century, the public had this same idea about the importance of Ophelia’s role.
Furthermore, the sexual innuendos that are associated with her and her madness repulsed the audience.
Ophelia’s role and text was therefore minimized on stage. According to Showalter:
The subversive or violent possibilities of the mad scene were nearly eliminated […] on the
eighteenth-century stage. Late Augustan stereotypes of female love-melancholy were
sentimentalized versions which minimized the force of female sexuality, and made female
insanity a pretty stimulant to male sensibility. […] For much of the period, in fact, Augustan
objections to the levity and indecency of Ophelia’s language and behavior led to censorship
of the part. Her lines were frequently cut. (Showalter 82-83)
These ideas about Ophelia were reflected in the illustrations of the play; her character was given little or no
attention by artists. According to Richard Altick, “Ophelia was not represented in early book illustrations of
Hamlet
, for the sufficient reason that orthodox critical opinion was against her: it deplored, on different
grounds, both her madness and her death” (Altick 299). Ophelia was not often portrayed and if she was
depicted in an illustration, she was portrayed in a group scene with all the major characters, as in Francis
Hayman’s illustration.
§1.3 Francis Hayman’s artistic milieu
The first illustration in which Ophelia appears was drawn by Francis Hayman in the 1744 edition of
Shakespeare's plays by Sir Thomas Hanmer (Plate 1). Hayman was a well-known English painter and
illustrator. According to the Michael Pidgley, he was one of the founding members of the famous Royal
Academy of Arts in London. He is famed for his paintings for the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London and
his thirty illustrations for Hanmer’s Shakespeare. Through his friendships with William Hogarth, David
Garrick and French engravers, such as Hubert Gravelot, Hayman was tempted to draw in a mixture of styles.
14
the “eighteenth-century narrative painting” (Merchant 142). Hogarth influenced Hayman in painting
theatrical settings. Garrick was an important Shakespearean actor in the Eighteenth Century, who “confirmed
[Hayman's] impulse towards theatrical drawing which he had received from Hogarth” (142). The agreement
between the editor Hanmer and the illustrator Hayman states that, “The said Francis Hayman is to design and
delineate a drawing to be prefix'd to each Play of Shakespear taking the subject of such scenes as Sir Thomas
Hanmer shall direct” (Merchant 141). Hayman was not free to choose what he wanted to illustrate of Hamlet
himself, but it is impossible to say how much he heeded Hanmer’s instructions. Hayman decided to depict a
stage scene of Hamlet. The illustration that Hayman made for Hamlet (Plate 1) depicts the scene of the
“Mousetrap” (3.3.239):
I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks; [...]
The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
(2.2.596-607)
The illustration is a theatrical drawing, which places Hamlet, Horatio and Ophelia on the right. Hamlet and
Horatio are watching the king’s reaction and Ophelia is watching Hamlet, seemingly oblivious to the king’s
response to the play. Claudius in the left is the focus of attention. The queen and Polonius look at him from
the left. He has just jumped up from his chair with the “outspread hands as a gesture of fear or horror”
(Hodnett 46), looking shocked at the players in the background, who are playing the death scene in the
Murder of Gonzago
. The illustration is drawn as if the viewers of this illustration are an audience, watching
the play Hamlet, with all the main players on stage. Merchant remarks that it is “doubly theatrical in that the
‘murder of Gonzago’ is played below a musicians' gallery, while the two principal groups in the 'audience'
are strongly placed downstage” (Merchant 145). The Hamlet is even modelled after the famous actor Garrick
in his performance of Hamlet. The characters are dressed in attire that reflects “the height of contemporary
style” (Hodnett 46). For example, Ophelia is dressed in a ‘Robe a la Francaise,’ a popular garment at that
time. Schapiro demonstrates that the meaning of a text changes for successive illustrators and this can be
seen in the fact that they apply modern knowledge and cultural codes in their illustrations. For example, the
dress code of society is imitated in their illustration. He states that “in giving a pictorial form to figures
named in [a] [...] text, the painter often represents them anachronistically as people of his own time and place
or according to current ideas about the past” (Schapiro 16). Hayman’s illustration is an example of this idea.
His characters are in contemporary dress and use the gestures that were customary for the contemporary style
of representation of the play. For example, Claudius is wearing the standard military garment and has
outspread hands as a gesture of his fear and horror. Due to Hogarth’s influence, Hayman decided to depict
the scene as a stage performance and portray the actors in contemporary costume.
15
Hayman was told by Hanmer which scene to portray, the Rococo influence can still be seen in the manner of
depicting this scene. In the illustration, the king expresses shock as the actors re-enact the murder he
committed. He was so overwhelmed by his emotions that he jumped out of his chair. In the Rococo Period,
artists wanted to portray that moment when the character is feeling extreme emotions. Furthermore, the
artists wanted to praise virtue and condemn vice. This can also be seen in Hayman’s illustration. The
depicted Mousetrap-scene could be considered the turning point in the play. Here it is proven that the king is
guilty of the murder; it is the moment the king’s vice becomes clear. The condemnation of the king’s act can
be seen in Hamlet’s and Horatio’s disapproving expression in the illustration. Gertrude is looking up, but she
is rather bemused than shocked. Ophelia, however, is unaware of the king’s response to the play and is
unmoved by what is happening around her. She is simply looking at Hamlet. The Rococo artists despised this
unaffected attitude, as said before, “to be without feeling means to be dull” (Houser 58). This again suggests
Hayman’s criticism of the character Ophelia and her unimportance to the artist. French engravers further
inspired Hayman’s use of the “continental rococo book-illustration” (Merchant 142). The influence of
Gravelot can particularly be seen in Hayman’s drawing. His illustration closely resembles Gravelot’s
illustration of Macbeth (Plate 2). In this drawing, a curtain with the same shape can be seen on the
foreground and the same balcony on the background. Even Claudius’ posture resembles that of Macbeth in
this illustration. The typical Rococo feminine S-curve can also be found in Hayman’s illustration. The
curtain and characters in the illustration form the S-form. The S-curved form in the illustration was copied
from Gravelot’s depiction of Macbeth, so it could be that Hayman did have no other intention with the
S-form, but to comply with the Rococo’s rules of representation. However, I suggest that this “serpentine line”
(Park 19), the symbol of Eve’s sin, can be seen as a symbol of the vice, not only of the king, but also of the
female characters in the illustration. It could be symbolic of Gertrude’s betrayal of king Hamlet and her
marriage to Claudius and of Ophelia’s lust. Hamlet makes sexual remarks to Ophelia in this same scene (2.2)
of Hamlet, which suggests that they might have a sexual relationship:
Hamlet: No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.
[Turns to Ophelia.]
[...]
[lying down at Ophelia’s feet] Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap.
Ophelia: Ay, my lord.
Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters?
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.
Hamlet: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs. (3.2.111-120)
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in the play into the serpentine form in the illustration. By using the Rococo style of representation, Hayman
could give a new meaning to the Mousetrap-scene, or rather, emphasize the condemnation of vice in this
scene. The aesthetic norms and values of the Rococo Period influenced Hayman in his illustration of Hamlet.
§2 The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
§2.1The social influences on the art of the Pre-Raphaelites
John Everett Millais was part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. According to Marcia Werner, this was an
artistic confederation founded in London in 1848. Together with his friends William Holman Hunt and
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Millais founded this brotherhood as a reaction to the art of Raphael, who was
“viewed by the world as a figure who embodied all the greatness of artistic moral ambition and expression,
and whom their teachers told them to revere and emulate, it was Raphael from whom they must free
themselves and rebel against the accepted establishment reverence for his qualities” (Upstone 11). They
rebelled against the “posturing academic mannerism and […] the outmoded hierarchies and techniques that
were the inheritance of Sir [Joshua] Reynolds” (Upstone 12). The Pre-Raphaelites wanted to create a new
art style that was in contrast to the Grand Manner art style they were taught on the Royal Academy of Arts,
an art style that idealized perfect beauty. According to Reynolds, “‘the whole beauty and grandeur of the art
consists … in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every
kind’” (qtd. in Rogers). The Pre-Raphaelites saw the importance of depicting the problems of real life and of
the individual. John Tupper wrote in an article in The Germ, a magazine that the Pre-Raphaelites published,
that the artists should not paint historical subjects, but modern-day subjects. Werner states:
These proposed replacements or counterparts for historical subjects are touching in their
earnestness and certainly reveal the political consciousness, sympathy with the oppressed,
and attraction to the unromantic and commonplaces themes [...] associated with Realism.
Instead of limiting themselves to glorifying noble and heroic deeds of the past and lamenting
remote disasters, artists are called on by Tupper to address modern problems and to
recognize the heroic and horrific in everyday life – in poverty and despair and exploitation of
the poor, in charitable impulses and domestic virtue. (Werner 63-64)
The Pre-Raphaelites did not comment on the political problems of their time (the 1848 Revolutions), but they
were moved by the troubles of the people to honestly portray these human tragedies. The Pre-Raphaelites
depicted the truthful facts of life; they were not striving for an ideal picture, but for a realistic depiction of
life. This idea was incited by French Realism. Werner remarks that “it appeared that early Pre-Raphaelitism,
as a whole, was essentially an expression of Realism, comprising the English form of that nineteenth-century
style. William Michael Rossetti identified Pre-Raphaelitism in precisely this way – as the English
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were concerned with naturalism, only the English realized the effect ‘through its minute details’” (Staley 25).
Werner comments that the Pre-Raphaelites use of symbolism “is an important component of Pre-Raphaelite
art and [...] of its Realist vision” (Werner 75). Paintings with minute details and symbols are typical for the
Pre-Raphaelite art style. Another social influence on the Pre-Raphaelites, could be Ford Madox Brown’s
ideas. According to Robert Upstone, she expressed a “need for change, an alternative to the industrialized,
unregulated, profit-driven banal horror mid-Victorian society” (Upstone 15). Ford Madox Brown was closely
associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The Pre-Raphaelites might have picked up on his idea that
there was need for a change in the industrialized society. Their preference for depicting nature might be
influenced by this idea; it shows the ideal of nature instead of industry. Werner explores two other important
aspects in the art of the Pre-Raphaelites: they “placed high value on communicating the inner life of their
subjects, their interest, most characteristically, centered on expressing emotion or psychology” (Werner 31)
and they had a “nationalistic pride in the British artistic heritage” (Werner 72). These two elements made
Ophelia a perfect subject for their art. The Pre-Raphaelite art is characterized by five aspects: perfect realism
and symbolism and the Pre-Raphaelites’ interest for nature, psychology and its nationalistic themes.
§2.2 The obsession with the death of a young woman
As mentioned above, Ophelia is one of the most depicted characters of Hamlet. She is often portrayed in her
drowning scene, as John Everett Millais did in his painting of Ophelia (Plate 3). The word-image relation is
most interesting in these depictions of her. Georgianna Ziegler states that “it is surely no accident that Queen
Victoria’s reign, 1837-1901, corresponded to a heightened cult of womanhood which revealed itself in a
focus on the heroines of that other idol of the period, Shakespeare” (Ziegler 11). The women characters in
Shakespeare’s plays were more appreciated by the audience. Before the Eighteenth Century, Ophelia was not
often depicted and if she was portrayed, then it was in a larger group context, as in Hayman’s engraving of
Hamlet
(Plate 1). The obsession with depicting a young woman dying started in the Romantic Period, a
subject which is most famously noted in Poe's statement, “the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably,
the most poetical topic in the world” (qtd. in Peterson 1). Ziegler remarks about this fascination with
beautiful dead women:
representations of dead women became a topos in the art of the period. Elizabeth Bronfen
writes that the fascination with such representations of the female body ‘has to do with the
fact that the two enigmas of western culture, death and female sexuality, are here ‘contained’
in a [non-threatening] way.’ In Ophelia’s case, she can be seen as pure and virginal in her
death sleep – and thus more comfortably the nineteenth-century female ideal – as opposed to
frightening and violent in her madness. (Ziegler 71)
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beauty of a woman and the beauty of the image counteract the destructiveness of death. She states, “[t]he
beauty of Woman and the beauty of the image both give the illusion of intactness and unity, cover the
insupportable signs of lack, deficiency, transiency and promise their spectators the impossible – an
obliteration of death's unique castrative threat to the subject” (Bronfen 64). An artist’s fascination with
Ophelia could be explained by the suggested balance between the beauty of a picture of a beautiful woman
and the destructiveness of death. According to Bram Dijkstra, however, the obsession with the drowning
Ophelia has to do with it showing female dependency:
Shakespeare’s Ophelia, the later nineteenth-century’s all-time favorite example of the
love-crazed self-sacrificial woman who most perfectly demonstrated her devotion to her man by
descending into madness [...] and who in the end committed herself to a watery grave,
thereby fulfilling the nineteenth-century male’s fondest fantasies of feminine dependency.
(Dijkstra 42)
Ophelia’s drowning is the result of feminine dependency. Hamlet rejects Ophelia’s love and without her
brother and her father killed, she descends into madness. She is helpless without the men; she depends on
them for her sanity. Ophelia needs the guidance of the men, as is several times expressed in the play. She
says, “I do not know, my lord, what I should think” (1.3.104) and “I shall obey, my lord” (1.3.136). Without
Laertes and Polonius to give her advice and with Hamlet’s abandonment, Ophelia is lost. She ends her
madness and loneliness by committing suicide. In the visual arts, the drowning Ophelia is often portrayed
with a vacant expression, as if she is unaware of what is to happen. In Millais’ painting (Plate 3), Ophelia
looks up in serene wonderment. Her hands are up, as if resigned in her faith; she cannot live on without the
directions and love of the male characters in the play. Whether due to the enigmas death and female sexuality
or to the image of feminine dependency, pictures of the drowning Ophelia were in this art period the most
popular subject.
Kaara Peterson observes that “the ‘typical’ [drowning] Ophelia of the plastic arts has so imprinted
itself on our imaginations that we tend either to ignore how her death is reported in Hamlet or we tend to
augment the text to include a drowning scene, which literalizes into a ‘seen,’ appearing in our mind's eye as
we read” (Peterson 2). With Delacroix’s drowning Ophelia in La Morte d’Ophélie (Plate 4) as predecessor
and model for future works of Ophelia, the drowning scene is the most depicted. However, when looking at
the text, the details of her actual death are not that clear:
There is a willow grows askant the brook
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
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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 lauds,
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. (4.7.165-82)
This account of Ophelia’s death is recited by Gertrude. Gertrude is not an omniscient figure in the play.
Throughout the play she is unaware of Hamlet’s plan and she is unknowing of the murder by Claudius on
king Hamlet, her former husband. Her ignorance throughout the play should be noted when reading the
information she claims she has about Ophelia's death. Peterson remarks that while it is not new “to observe
that Gertrude cannot have been present during the drowning [...], it is significant to note that […] critics have
neglected the import of this basic observation and [also] glossed over the oddity of the aestheticized tone of
the recital” (Peterson 4). This aestheticized quality of her speech is quite unusual in this context and different
in style in comparison to the rest of her text. The gravediggers say something completely different about
Ophelia's death; they talk about her suicide:
Other. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
Gravedigger. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
[…] It must be se offendendo, it cannot be else. […]
Here lies the water – good. Here stands the man – good. If the man go to this water, and
drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes, mark you that. But if the water come to him and
drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not
his own life. […]
Other. Will you ha’ the truth an‘t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been
buried out o’ Christian burial. (5.1.4-25)
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Altick remarks, “the element of overt madness was nearly always played down, artists prudently limiting her
mental disturbance to a mild melancholia” (Altick 299). Ophelia’s madness was still avoided by the artists.
Ophelia was seen as a tragic heroine by the artists of the Romantic Period, which made the beautified death
scene a popular subject to depict.
§2.3 The pictorialism of Ophelia: a form of covert intermediality?
Martha Ronk explains that Ophelia is like a picture herself in the play. She is “represented as the projection
of others” (Ronk 1). Her father Polonius, her brother Laertes and her lover Hamlet advice her on how to
behave and 'correct' her in her own judgments. Hamlet looks upon Ophelia as though he meant to draw her as
a picture, as Ophelia remarks:
He took me by the wrist and held me hard.
Then goes he to the length of all his arm,
And with his other hand thus o'er his brow
He falls to such perusal of my face
As a would draw it. (2.1.87-91)
Furthermore, when she has lost her father, when Laertes is not there to guide her and Hamlet is not
interested in her anymore, she goes mad and Claudius remarks about her state of being, “poor Ophelia /
Divided from herself and her fair judgment, / Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts”
(4.5.84-86). Without mental judgment, Ophelia cannot be seen as a person by Claudius. She is more like a picture
of a person, only the exterior reflection of a person. This theory by Ronk that Ophelia is like a picture,
would make Shakespeare’s words about Ophelia a form of pictorialism, which is to describe “anything in
the manner of a painter” (Heffernan 190). Shakespeare did not only use pictorialism to describe Ophelia as
a picture, one could also say that Shakespeare used the principle of ‘ut pictura poesis' for Ophelia. ‘Ut
picture poesis’ is “a phrase used by the Roman poet Horace in his Ars Poetica (c.20 BC), meaning ‘as
painting is, so is poetry’” (Baldick 235). This phrase suggests a connection between art and literature;
poetry can imitate art. Through his characters, Shakespeare describes Ophelia as a painting; the art of his
poetry imitates the art of painting. One could argue that this form of pictorialism in the text, which passage
suggests the art of painting, is a form of covert intermediality. Werner Wolf proposes to distinguish
between “'overt' or direct intermediality and 'covert' or indirect intermediality” (Wolf 39). Overt
intermediality means that a relation exists between two media that are both actually present with their own
forms and characteristics. According to Wolf covert intermediality is:
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while another one (the non-dominant medium) is indirectly present 'within' the first
medium (Wolf 41).
Only one medium is present, but a second one is incorporated in this first medium. Wolf gives the example
of ekphrasis, which he argues is “the verbalization of, e.g., a painting in a novel, short story or poem” (Wolf
43). The medium (the text) is present which refers to the second absent medium (the painting). Wolf calls
this reference to the second medium “thematization” (Wolf 44) of intermediality:
To regard thematization as a form of intermediality may [...] be advisable with a
view to the general analogy with intertextuality, on which the definition of
intermediality [...] was based, since all references to pre-texts occurring in a text
would equally be classified as intertextuality, regardless of their form or extent.
Generally, it does seem to make sense to admit thematizations of, or references to,
other media, at least as more or less peripheral phenomena of intermediality (Wolf 45).
A connection with intertextualiy can be made here: since every text mentioned in another text is considered
as intertextuality, every medium mentioned in another medium can be seen as a form of intermediality.
Wolf explained that covert intermediality means that one medium is present, but a second one, which is not
actually present, is discussed in this first medium. In this case, the ‘picture of Ophelia’ is discussed by the
other characters in the play Hamlet. Wolf gave the example of ekphrasis, a form of pictorialism, as covert
intermediality. Murray Krieger points out:
[i]n speaking of ekphrasis, I have pointed to its source in the semiotic desire for the natural
sign. It is the desire that prefers the immediacy of the picture to the mediation of the code, as
well as the desire […] that asks, for a tangible, ‘real’ referent that would render the sign
transparent. Thus ekphrasis, as the ultimate realization of these desires, rests on a
pictorialism – the belief in the natural-sign basis for all the arts – and was most attractive as a
device when pictorialism was in flower. (Krieger 6)
As ekphrasis is a form of covert intermediality and it “rests on a pictorialism” (Krieger 6), perhaps
pictorialism in general can be seen as a form of covert intermediality as well. The pictures that artists make
of Ophelia are, however, a form of overt intermediality, since both the medium text and the medium art are
present. The character of Ophelia is described as a picture in the play. The texts describing her are a form of
pictorialism, therefore this text can be seen as covert intermediality. However, the illustrations of Ophelia are
a form of overt intermediality.
§2.4 Millais’ painting of Ophelia
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sixteen. In 1848 he founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood together with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and
William Holman Hunt and in 1851 he painted his masterpiece Ophelia (Plate 3), according to the aesthetic
norms and values of that art movement. Due to their nationalistic pride, the Pre-Raphaelites liked to paint
subjects from famous English literary works, such as the Arthurian legends or works from Shakespeare. It is
no wonder that Millais decided to depict Ophelia: she was a perfect subject because of the Pre-Raphaelite
fascination with the death of a beautiful young woman, and as a character from a play of Shakespeare. The
painting depicts Ophelia floating in water, surrounded by all kinds of shrubs and flowers. She looks serene
with the flowers she had just picked floating around her and her hands out of the water and upwards to the
sky, as if reconciled with her destiny, or unaware of her tragic fate. The subject of Ophelia drowning was
popular for the Pre-Raphaelites, since they wanted to express the complex emotions and psychology of
human beings. Ophelia’s madness was most difficult and elusive to depict. According to Werner, “Millais
was required to construct […] the mood and affect of a mad suicide and to convey Ophelia’s nobility of spirit
and her obliviousness to the danger of her situation” (Werner 94). Millais combined three important elements
in Pre-Raphaelite painting, which are realism, symbolism and their fascination with nature. He spent five
months outside to paint the picture’s background in the open air, so it would be truthful to nature. His
painting demonstrates the Pre-Raphaelite Realism, in which attention is paid to the minutest details. His
flowers are painted truthful to nature and he even consulted a biologist to make sure they were correct and all
of the same season. Some of the flowers were later changed to fit their symbolic meaning to the scene, or
because they were mentioned in the play. Harold Osborne and Anthony Langdon claim that since “the early
19th century, flower painting has reflected the wider preoccupations that painters have had, on the one hand,
with realism and the management of colour and, on the other hand, with Symbolism” and they say that
“flowers also carry the general connotation of fragility and transience” (Osborne and Langdon). Millais used
the flowers to symbolize Ophelia’s transience. Other flowers are used since they are mentioned in the play or
because their symbols express Millais’ interpretation of Ophelia. These symbols are explained by the website
of the Tate Gallery, the owner of the painting. For example, the purple flowers in the top right corner allude
to the “long purples” (4.7.168) in the play. Other flowers mentioned in the play and painted by Millais are
the daisies, which refer to innocence, the crownet weeds, which symbolize death, and finally the violets,
which symbolize chastity and the death of someone young. Another important element is the weeping
willow, also mentioned in the play
2, which is a symbol of forsaken love and of female sexuality. All these
flowers refer to the death of the young and innocent Ophelia. The daisies refer to Ophelia’s innocence; she is
seen by Millais as a character without sin, a naïve victim of the play. Ophelia is unaware of the feud between
Hamlet and Claudius and she does not knowingly participate in their struggle. However, she becomes an
innocent victim when she is rejected by Hamlet and he kills her father, which leads to her madness and
eventual death. Her death is symbolized by the crownet weeds and the violets. The violets also refer to
Ophelia’s chastity and innocence. There are different views about Ophelia’s virtue, but, unlike the artists in
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