La metamorfosis de Ofeliaanálisis práctico de la transformación del personaje shakespeariano en la obra de J. E. Millais (1852) y su influencia en tres trabajos fotográficos contemporáneos para la revista Vogue (2011-2013)

Abstract

Bringing together literary and visual analysis, this article offers an eminentlypractical, interdisciplinary and diachronic approach to the reutilization and resignification ofShakespeare’s Ophelia, on the one hand, by the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais (1852)and, on the other, through contemporary photographic works by Alas & Piggott (2011), McGinley(2012) and Oh Joong Seok (2013) for Vogue magazine. For obvious length constraints, and with aview to taking a closer look at these 21st century renditions, this piece of research is not meant tooffer an exhaustive list of every single creative approach to Ophelia since the mid-nineteenth centuryonwards. Instead, it is primarily meant as a scholarly reflection on the durability and mutability ofthis ill-fated literary character on the basis of textual and visual analysis. Substantial emphasis willalso fall on the function of Millais’ work as mediator between the textual and the photographicmedium. We will therefore examine the corresponding transposition processes (from Shakespeare toMillais and beyond) to gauge whether these routines of appropriation (and projection of additional186meanings onto newly-constructed ‘Ophelias’) have distorted the features and demeaned the status ofthis classic literary character or, quite on the contrary, have strengthened her presence in the mindsof modern audiences -and so contributed to the durability of Shakespeare’s work.