“Re-Mediating Ophelia With Pre-Raphaelite Eyes”

Abstract. The Shakespearean fair Ophelia has become through the centuries a
multi faceted heroine apt to embody all the victims of patriarchal domination, but
also the evil and victimized decadent lady, who would annihilate her tormentor.
Similar oxymoronic identifications were possible partly because of the vagueness that
distinguishes her character in the Shakespearean tragedy, and partly because of the
fluctuating status of adolescent girls in society. Moreover, the contemporary reception
of Ophelia has strongly been biased by the treatment of this literary myth by the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In the Victorian era, when issues about the condition,
the power, and the rights of women were raised with particular force, Ophelia soon
became an icon of sublime but dangerous beauty. Such an association even came to
the point that Elizabeth Siddal – poet, painter, and model of Millais’s Ophelia – was
identified with the Shakespearean heroine, by virtue of her unquenchable thirst for
knowledge, her unrequited love, her prettiness, and the torture she allegedly provoked
to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s conscience.