Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9

PRE-RAPHAELITE ARTISTS TRANSPOSING SHAKESPEARE’S

Lavinia Hulea Lecturer, PhD, University of Petroșani

Abstract: In the context of the preference manifested by the Victorian painters for Shakespeareřs work, the character of Ophelia gradually became a highly exploited subject, which resulted in a series of paintings that were hosted by the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, almost on a regular basis. Despite concomitant or subsequent paintings that treated the tragic figure of Ophelia, Millaisřs version, which has been accredited to represent the scene where the young woman, maddened by the death of her father, Polonius, murdered by Hamlet, her lover, drowned herself in a stream, was quite unusual, at the time, and is considered to have singularly expressed the themes of love, death, youth and beauty as pervasive of both the art and life.The literary source text that Hughes had in mind when he embarked on painting his Ophelia is the same as the one referred to by Millais (act IV, scene 7). Yet, the conversion of the source text engages changes that substantiate an artistic product which hardly asserts an identity resemblance to Millaisřs painting. Text and image are mixed by Hughes in a manner that expresses a conversion of the character that is obviously different from the work of the Pre-Raphaelite founder.

Keywords: Pre-Raphaelites, transposition, reversed-ekphrasis, source text, target text

Ophelia (1851-2) by Millaisřs version of Ophelia, which has been accredited to represent the scene where the young woman, maddened by the death of her father, Polonius, murdered by Hamlet, her lover, drowned herself in a stream, was quite unusual, at the time, and is considered to have singularly expressed the themes of love, death, youth and beauty as pervasive of both the art and life. While the sequence of Shakespeareřs play, to which Millais is supposed to refer, might impose certain restrictions regarding its staging, which would require a highly elaborated set, it, nonetheless, appears to be more suited for visual art renderings that transpose both the character of Ophelia and the natural imagery contained by the fragment. Although in Hamlet, the heroine is attributed a less important part, being mentioned in five scenes out of twenty, the painter appears to have heightened her status through an interpretation, which pertains to the characterřs iconicity.

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Section: Literature Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9

John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-2, Tate, , United Kingdom Millaisřs transposition of the Shakespearean text, carried out through the process of reversed ekphrasis, involves the literary source text, which is transposed into the visual target text, owing to a trichotomous process that comprises: the linear readingof the source text, performed by the painter before the making of the visual art work, theconversionof the literary text, carried out as a destabilizationof the literary source text; and thesubstantiation of the conversion, which, not only involves new and subjective temporal and spatial casts, but also implies the concomitant operation, owing to which the painting is ingrained with pictoriality, representing the scarcely definable quality that turns a non-artistic product into a work of art; pictoriality also gives the measure of the effectiveness of the process of reversed ekphrasis, while pointing to the stylistic identity of the visual target text and its raking within the category of art. The paintersř reading of a literary text they intend to transpose into visual art works may, at times, come out owing to autobiographies, personal correspondence or public self-references that are indicative of the creation process; moreover, other indirect, circumstantial data frequently put forward the intertextual evidence of the target text. The circumstances revealing the manner according to which Millais brought the character of Ophelia into being point out Millais spending almost four exhausting months, between July and October 1851, painting the landscape on the bank of the River Hogsmill, at Ewell, in Surrey. The artist confessed that he used to wake up at 6 in the morning, in order to start working at around 8 ořclock and would return home only by 7 p.m., complaining about a series of issues he had to face while painting outdoors: ŖMy martyrdom is more trying than I have hitherto experienced. The flies of Surrey are more muscular, and have a still greater propensity for probing human flesh… I am threatened with a notice to appear before a magistrate for trespassing in a field and destroying the hay…am also in danger of being blown by the wind into the water, and 293

Section: Literature Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9 becoming intimate with the feelings of Ophelia when that Lady sank to muddy death, together with the (less likely) total disappearance, through the voracity of the flies… certainly the painting of a picture under such circumstances would be a greater punishment to a murderer than hanging…ŗ (Millais, 1899: 119-20) The figure of Elizabeth Siddal was added to the picture only in December, when the artist brought the painting to London. As far as the stage of conversionis concerned, I should notice that Millaisřs paintingdisplays an apparently faithful rendition of the Shakespearean text as it sets out to recreate imaginatively the lines where Gertrude informs Laertes of Opheliařs death, with the young woman picking flowers and supposedly falling into the river and finally drowning while singing: ŖQueen: …; - your sisterřs drownřd, Laertes. Laertes: Drownřd! O, where? Queen: 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 Ŕ flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead menřs 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 chaunted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and induřd Unto that element: but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pullř d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.ŗ (Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, act IV, scene 7: 200) Nonetheless, it is important to observe that Opheliařs drowning is rendered by the playřs text indirectly, through Gertrudeřs words before the court and, when uttering them, the queen appears to share someone elseřs account of the events and attributes the drowning to accidental causes (produced by an Ŗenvious sliverŗ). Meanwhile, the next scene displaying the discussion between the men digging Opheliařs grave, may suggest that the young woman might have indeed committed suicide, despite her being buried as a person having died out of an ordinary death: Ŗ1 Clown: Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she willfully seeks her own salvation? 2 Clown: I tell thee she is; and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. 1 Clown:

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Section: Literature Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9

How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence? 2 Clown: Why, Řtis found so. 1 Clown: It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it is to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly. … Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if the man go to this water and drowns 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.ŗ (Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, act V, scene 1: 2000) In the case of Millaisřs Ophelia, conversion occurs through a destabilisationof the source text. Theclaim that the reversed ekphrastic process does not involve a reframingof the source text is grounded on a reasoning which supports the idea that Millaisřs visual target text converts, in fact, an absent scene, the moment of Opheliařs drowning, which is turned into a purely subjective and mental construction operated by the painter, who, in the absence of the playwrightřs direct rendition of the characterřs death, builds up a particular, physical, yet intuitive, appearance of Ophelia. Shakespeareřs Ophelia is, in truth, Millaisřs Ophelia, despite the amount of landscape detail, which is rigorously transcribed from Shakespeareřs text. Millais observes closely the intricate scenery of a scene that does not exist in the play, but is only mediated through an indirect description (Gertrudeřs), which does not bear the authorřs validation. The conversion reveals here a problematic functioning that might question the effectiveness of a separation between reframing and destabilisation. If, on the one hand, the abundant details may induce the level of reframing, on the other one, the moment chosen by the painter, indirectly presented by the literary text, strongly claims for the level of destabilization, which forcefully replaces the gap in the play (the drowning scene). As far as the stage of the substantiation of the conversion is concerned, it includes the painterřs handling of pictoriality, which should not be analyzed as a separate phase of the process of reversed ekphrasis; instead, it has to be perceived as a quality that pervades the whole process, beginning with the moment the painter engages in interpreting the source text; it spreads through the spatial and temporal pattern of the painting, the accuracy of the details, the drawing and the use of colour, inscribing the target text within a stylistic pattern, and finally within the category of art. In accordance with the above considerations, a most striking element in Millaisřs conversion of the literary text is a flourishing of minute natural detail: the willow that grows Ŗaslantŗ the brook, the branches entangling with a nettle, a robin that rests on a branch, which might be a reminder of the Ŗbonny Sweet Robinŗ in Opheliařs song, two scenes before (act 4, scene 5). The bank of the river is dotted with dog roses, while another one rests by Opheliařs cheek; a pink rose by the hem of the heroineřs dress may suggest a connection with the appellation Laertes had given to Ophelia, when calling her the Ŗrose of May.ŗ It may be assumed that the painter intended to establish subtle links between the vegetal realm and the human one through emphasizing its conversion in terms of symbolic signs capable of transmitting meanings charged with connotations. Part of the

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Section: Literature Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9 flowers included in the painting are mentioned by the source text, while others were introduced for their symbolic allusion: the upper right-hand corner of the canvas displays purple loosestrife that might suggest the Ŗlong purplesŗ of Gertrudeřs speech, while daisies are known as the embodiment of innocence. Opheliařs neck is encircled by violets that could be interpreted as the ones that Ŗwithered all when my father diedŗ and are carriers of connotations of both death and of chastity and faithfulness. Besides the above mentioned vegetal elements, Millais also painted a series of flowers, which the literary source text does not contain: forget-me-nots, introduced halfway up the figure, on the right and bottom left, whose name are deeply suggestive, the poppy, which may stand for a symbol of death. This complex vegetal imagery together with the heroineřs clothes, which also exhibit a sophisticated flower pattern, may be encompassed within the context of the Pre-Raphaelite rendering of women figures that are often considered passive and fragile. Various meanings are given to the robin in the willow tree, which is supposed to stand for a line of the song Ophelia sings while losing her mind, in Act IV, Scene 5 (ŖFor bonny sweet Robin is all my joyŗ), to suggest the characterřs parting spirit or to have been chosen by the artist Ŗfor its red breast. Red is traditionally the colour of martyrdom (deriving from the Catholic Church), bearing connotations of spilled blood and thus death. These associations are made more dramatic because it is difficult to spot the bird in the undergrowth, save for its red breast which provides a startling colour note of scarlet amidst all the brown. In the summer, robins, male and female, are fighting for territory and finding mates. Perhaps Millaisřs use of the lone robin is a reference to Opheliařs abandonment by Hamlet, which leads to her death?ŗ (Virag, 2014: 1) The colours of the natural environment, of the human figure, and of Opheliařs dress observe the characteristics of the Pre-Raphaelite painting making use of bright colours painted on a wet white ground and the imprint of naturalness pairs the imminent and final absorption of the human element by nature. Water rendering appears to imprint a smooth movement to the character that immerses in a floral and vegetal environment, which is wild and calm at the same time, as the passing-away occurs quietly, with no signs of violence. Millaisřs Ophelia seems euphoric at the very moment of her drowning, her lips slightly parted, while still singing, and her eyes void of conscious expression; her hands, in a gesture that does not transmit the fear of death, may express the embracing of death as a new afterlife. The conversion, unlike the literary text, seems to have purified the character: no mud touches Opheliařs dress and no dirt can be seen on her fingernails. Although there are various accounts of the manner the figure of Elizabeth Siddal impersonating Ophelia was introduced into the painting (the model had been posing for almost four months, in a bath full of water, which had to be warmed owing to several lamps that were placed beneath the bathtub; nevertheless, she caught a severe cold on one occasion, when the lamps did not function and the painter was threatened with legal suit by Elizabethřs father, in case he did not pay for her treatment), the picture does not appear to have in view the description of a specific woman, and mainly represents the rendition of women as tragic heroines. Ultimately, the fate of the Shakespearean character has come to be compared with that of the woman who posed for Ophelia, Elizabeth Siddal, whose early death and involvement in romantic love paralleled the life of the fictional heroine.

Ophelia (1852) by Arthur Hughes

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Section: Literature Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9

According to a commentary appeared in The Art Journal (1865: 332), Arthur Hughes was considered to deserve the place which Ruskin attributed to him when speaking of the painter as a main representative of the Pre-Raphaelite school. And the author of the article goes further in citing Ruskinřs considerations, mentioning that, while various Ŗwriters and amateursŗ attached no value to the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites, nonetheless, the artists proved their serious thinking in noteworthy, brilliant renderings, displaying a style that should become better known. The style referred to, which appears to range amidst the two extreme poles nominated as ŖPre-Raffaelitism naturalŗ and ŖPre-Raffaelitism unnaturalŗ, is seen as relying on audienceřs capabilities of better understanding an art that rather stresses the naturalistic vein than purely ideal art: Ŗbut the ill-drawn, thin, attenuated figure, having no form of comeliness nor personal beauty, excites only the surprise or ridicule of the many, whatever meaning the artist intends it to convey.ŗ The article subsequently stresses Hughesř capacity of having given a balanced painting, Ophelia, whose artistic merits not only match its title, but turns it into a pleasant work of art where Ŗevery blade of grass, every leaf and flower, are given with the most exquisite delicacy and the most scrupulous fidelity, and yet there appears no overstrained elaboration, while the colour of all is very rich and brilliant, both in the gradations of green verdure, and in the twilight sky, now deepening in the horizon into the intensest purple.ŗ Arthur Hughes was 19 years old when he painted Ophelia,which had been exhibited in the same year (1852) and by the same art establishment, the Royal Academy, as Huntřs Ophelia; yet, it appears that, except for the positive considerations in The Art Journal, at the time, the painting was neither over talked about nor acclaimed.

Arthur Hughes, Ophelia, 1852, Manchester City Art Gallery, United Kingdom

The literary source text, from Shakespeareřs Hamlet, that Hughes had in mind when he embarked on painting, is the same as the one referred to by Millais (act IV, scene 7), and Queen Gertrudeřs speech in the play, rendering Opheliařs death, is partially written on the frame. Yet, although the conversion of the source text occurs through destabilization, owing to the fact that it refers to a scene, which is only indirectly

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Section: Literature Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9 displayed in the play, mediated by Gertrude, and unconfirmed by the playwright himself, as in the case of Millaisřs Ophelia, it engages changes that substantiate an artistic product, which hardly asserts an identity resemblance to Millaisřs painting. Text and image are mixed by Hughes in a manner that expresses a conversion of the character that is obviously different from the work of the Pre-Raphaelite founder (John Everett Millais). In order to substantiatehis conversion and infuse the target with pictoriality, the painter resorted to a series of pattern devices that account for the spatial and temporal cast displayed by the image. Accordingly, the top left part of the frame containing the lines: Ŗ[...] There/ with fantastic garlands/ did she come. Of crow-flowers/ nettles, /daisiesŗ, channels the viewerřs sight to a visual point of interest, consisting in the crow-flowers, possibly a symbol of childhood, whose vivid yellow establishes an unnatural, because death-inducing, contrast with the darkened water. Hughes has been reproached that he deliberately left aside the lines: ŖThat liberal shepherds give a grosser name, / But our cold maids do dead menřs fingers call themŗ (Showalter, 1987: 90), which do not appear on the paintingřs frame and, accordingly, induce an interpretation of Ophelia as a Ŗtiny waiflike creature Ŕ a sort of Tinker-Bell Ophelia Ŕ in a filmy white gown, perched on a tree trunk by the stream. The overall effect is softened, sexless, and hazy, although the straw in her hair resembles a crown of thorns.ŗ Gertrudeřs lines refer to the purple loosestrife flowers or the Ŗlong purplesŗ, which do appear inscribed on the top right part of the frame; Hughesř omission of the lines cited previously may be interpreted as a manner of avoiding possible sexual connotations that would alter the implied vision of a sexually-innocent Ophelia. The painterřs manipulation of the source text during the reversed ekphrasis process, occurring as a destabilisation, performs significant changes, which become the carriers of new meanings activated by the stage of conversionřs substantiation. The painter placed his character on the trunk of a tree, watching the stream, surrounded by overgrown plants; as a background, an open field with some trees and an uncertain sunset. The water in front of Ophelia is barely perceptible behind the wild vegetation and a bat appears to fly towards the viewer while the overall shading of the picture, carefully designed, creates the illusion of depth. Opheliařs figure may be interpreted as bearing the imprint of an alienated soul, as she sits at the edge of the brook, with a crown of reeds in her hair, glaring at the flowers she drops in the water. Her skin is disturbingly pale, contrasting with the red lips and the dark, shadowy circles round her eyes, even more heightened by the white gown she wears. The visual representations of Shakespeareřs Ophelia are not the invention of the nineteenth-century artists; before them, Shakespeareřs works had been focused upon by a series of illustrators, and the engraver and publisher, , set out to produce an illustrated edition of his plays, as well as a folio of prints, whose sources had been the illustrations or paintings of the epochřs artists which included: George Romney, Benjamin West, Angelica Kauffman, Richard Westall, Thomas Stothard, , Robert Smirke, , Francesco Bartolozzi, Thomas Kirk, Henry Thomson, Josiah Boydell, and William Hamilton. Letřs also notice that Richard Westallřs (1765 Ŕ 1836) Ophelia, engraved by J. Parker, for Boydellřs illustrated edition of Shakespeare, rendering the heroine marching inevitably towards the water, displayed a pose that might relate to subsequent Pre-Raphaelite works. Despite such facts, the Pre-Raphaelite artists, who set out to paint Shakespearean characters Ŕ Ophelia, for instance - not only recreated them according to new visual terms, but, in doing this, they materialized their own image of women as icons.

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Section: Literature Iulian Boldea (Editor) - Literature, Discourses and the Power of Multicultural Dialogue Arhipelag XXI Press, Tîrgu Mureș, 2017. eISBN: 978-606-8624-12-9

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Art Journal. 1865. ŖTalbot and the Countess of Auvergneŗ. Hathi Trust Digital Library, version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. http://www.hathitrust.org/. Millais, John Everett. 1984. The Pre-Raphaelites. Tate Gallery. London. Millais, John, Guille. 1899. The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais. 2 vols. Methuen & Co., London. https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersofsir01millais. Mitchell, William, John, Thomas. 1994. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mitchell, William, John, Thomas. 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Prettejohn, Elisabeth. 2007. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites. Tate Publishing, London. Prettejohn, Elisabeth. 1999. After the Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Aestheticism in Victorian England. ManchesterUniversity Press, Manchester. Ruskin, John. 1851. ŖThe Pre-Raphaelitesŗ, in Suppliment to The Times. Exhibition of the RoyalAcademy: First Notice. London. www.rossettiarchive.org Ruskin, John. 1851. ŖThe Pre-Raphaelitesŗ, in Suppliment to The Times. Exhibition of the RoyalAcademy: Second Notice.London. www.rossettiarchive.org Ruskin, John. 1851. ŖNoteŗ in The Times, 30 May, London. www.engl.duq.edu/servus/PR_critic/LT30may5. Ruskin, John. 1904. ŖAcademy notes 1855 Ŕ 1888ŗ, in Library Edition of the Works of . Edited by E.T.Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, George Allen, London, Longmans, Gree, and Co., New York. http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/depts/ruskinlib/Academy. Shakespeare, William. 2000. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Collins edition, London. www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/2ws2610.pdf. Showalter, Elaine. 1987. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture 1830-1980. Virago Press, London. Virag, Rebecca. 2014. ŖWork in Focus: Millaisřs Ophelia 1851-52ŗ, London. www.tate.org.uk.

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Section: Literature