Hamlet (Vol. 35) | Carroll Camden (essay date 1964)
Carroll Camden (essay date 1964)
SOURCE: "On Ophelia's Madness," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2, Spring, 1964, pp. 247-55.
[In the following essay, Camden argues that Ophelia's madness is largely precipitated by her unrequited love for Hamlet, rather than her father's death.]
The character of Ophelia seems to have been puzzling to many critics who have written about the play. As a minor personage of the tragedy, she has not received the careful analysis accorded Hamlet, Gertrude, or Claudius, or even Laertes, Horatio, or Polonius. Her role in the play is not clear to critical writers who have attempted to answer the many questions which arise about Ophelia's relations with her father and with Hamlet—questions which must be answered if her madness is to be explained. Is her madness occasioned by her father's death? by her rejected love for Hamlet? or by both, in varying degrees?
The romantic critics apparently felt that...
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