Ophelia’s Ghosts: Representations of Ophelia’s madness in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its adaptations

• Název práce v češtině: Oféliiny přízraky: Zobrazení Oféliina šílenství v Shakespearově Hamletovi a jeho adaptacích
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Ophelia’s Ghosts: Representations of Ophelia’s madness in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its adaptations
• Klíčová slova: Hamlet|Shakespeare|Filmové adaptace|Inscenace|Divadlo|Šílenství|Feminismus
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Hamlet|Shakespeare|Film adaptation|Stage adaptation|Theatre|Madness|Feminism
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2022/2023
• Typ práce: bakalářská práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglofonních literatur a kultur (21-UALK)
• Vedoucí / školitel: doc. Clare Wallace, M.A., Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 14.02.2023
• Datum zadání: 15.02.2023
• Schválení administrátorem: bylo schváleno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 15.02.2023
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: ne
• Oponenti: PhDr. Soňa Nováková, CSc.

Zásady pro vypracování

Being recognizably one of William Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, Hamlet has concentred around itself countless adaptations and reinventions over the years. That can be, undisputedly, attributed to the ease with which it can be approached in rather creative ways. Due to such diversity in the interpretations of the play’s meaning and characters in both the process of staging Hamlet and its transference onto cinema screens, a concise analysis of the evolution of Hamlet becomes of interest. One of the most commonly transformed characters has lately become Ophelia. This thesis, therefore, aims at producing an examination of Ophelia in contemporary performances, more precisely of the portrayal of her emerging madness. Firstly, it will focus on the play itself, primarily on the significance of her deteriorating mental health therein. Additionally, it will attempt a general overview of the staging of the play in previous historical periods. It will then move to some of the modern performances, discussing recent theatre productions on the British Isles as well as in Czech Republic, namely those in Švandovo Divadlo and Divadlo ABC in Prague, and subsequently also three popular movie adaptations: the 1990’s Hamlet directed by Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branaghy’s Hamlet (1996), and Michael Almereyd’s Hamlet (2000). Finally, it positions Ophelia’s infirmity in general context of female madness in modern theatre. The thesis will thus try not only to comment on the current trends in producing and adapting Hamlet, and eventual influence of the chosen medium, but also to show the increasing politicizing impact of various approaches to Ophelia’s character. It will also attempt to establish the existence of a difference between Hamlet and Ophelia’s characters stemming from the gendered portrayal of their madness, which actively reinforces the political or societal message, possibly even unintentional, behind the production.

Seznam odborné literatury

Primary sources:
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by T. J. B. Spencer. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin Press, 2015.
---. Hamlet. Dir. Michael Almereyda. Prod. Andrew Fierberg and Amy Hobby. Universal-International. 2000.
---. Hamlet. Dir. Kenneth Branagh. Prod. David Barron. Columbia Pictures, 1996.
---. Hamlet. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Prod. Warner Bros. 1990.
---. Hamlet. Divadlo ABC. Translation by Jiří Josek. Dir. Michal Dočekal. Live Performance. 26 November 2021.
---. Hamlet. Švandovo divadlo. Translation by Martin Hilský. Dir. Daniel Špinar. Live Performance. 22 February 2022.
Secondary sources:
Bloom, Gina, Anston Bosman, and William N. West. “Ophelia’s Intertheatricality, or, How Performance Is History.” Theatre Journal 65, no. 2 (2013): 165–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24580384.
Bristol, Michael, Kathleen McLuskie, and Christopher Holmes, eds. Shakespeare and Modern Theatre: The Performance of Modernity. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. Kindle.
Camden, Carroll. “On Ophelia’s Madness.” Shakespeare Quarterly 15, no. 2 (1964): 247–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/2867895.
Cook, Patrick J. Cinematic Hamlet: The Films of Olivier, Zeffirelli, Branagh, and Almereyda. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2011.
Corrigan, Timothy. “Literature on Screen, a History: in the Gap.” In The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen. Edited by Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan. Leicester: De Montfort University, 2007.
Foucault, Michel, Jean Khalfa, and Jonathan Murphy. History of madness. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. New Haven: Yale University press, 1984.
Harpin, Anna, and Juliet Foster, eds. Performance, Madness and Psychiatry: Isolated Acts. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Neely, Carol Thomas. “‘Documents in Madness’: Reading Madness and Gender in Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Early Modern Culture.” Shakespeare Quarterly 42, no. 3 (1991): 315–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/2870846.
Peterson, Kaara L. and Deanne Williams, eds. The Afterlife of Ophelia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Rhodes, Kimberly. Ophelia and Victorian Visual Culture: Representing Body Politics in the Nineteenth Century. London and New York: Routledge, 2016.
Rooks, Amanda Kane. “The ‘New’ Ophelia in Michael Almereyda’s ‘Hamlet.’” Literature/Film Quarterly 42, no. 2 (2014): 475–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43798981.
Werner, Sarah. Shakespeare and Feminist Performance: Ideology on Stage. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.