Taylor Swift’s “The Destiny of Ophelia” has a lot in common with this work of art
Taylor Swift’s new album The life of a singer A song draws on the familiar and tragic narrative of the artist and writer throughout the time.
The first track on the record, titled “Ophelia’s Fate”, refers to the character who encounters a tragic ending in William Shakespeare’s play village. In the play, Hamlet accidentally kills Ophelia’s father, causing her to break up with her lover. She was so swallowed by sorrow that she eventually drowned herself.
Since its publication in 1623, this narrative has inspired not only Swift, but numerous narratives. An example is the painting of John Everett Miles Ophelia (1851 – 52), it depicts the titular role of singing in the moments before the death of a rural stream. Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces provide a layered and romanticized view of female pain, each flower associated with specific Victorian virtues.
Tate owns the painting and regularly displays it in London’s Tate Britain, which released this week discusses what the museum network calls “Ophelia’s true fate”: the death of its model, artist Elizabeth Siddal, after overdose in Laudanum in 1862. (Siddal’s suicide was illegal when she died, and her death was still under debate.)
Swift’s album cover similarly shows pop music floating above the water, which is compared to the Millais painting.
However, in her case, Swift has given her successful relationship with her current United team, American football player Travis Kelce.
In the optimistic pop song, the singer offers in the first verse “If you never come for me/I might be drowned in me,” unlike the Shakespeare character.
In the chorus, Swift then Crones “Late Night/You dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from Ophelia’s fate.” Later, rewrite a happy ending, never received the character, Swift sang: “This will be the sleepless night you dream of / Ophelia’s fate”.
In the second verse, Swift is a character who avoids love before referring to his turbulent dating history before his relationship with Kelce. Finally, Swift said that because she discovered love with Kells, she would not die like Ophelia: “Ophelia’s fate/it was locked in my memory/only you have the key/no more drowning and deceiving/doing/everything because you came for me.”
The twist of “Ophelia’s Destiny” reminds a similar reclamation in Swift’s 2008 track “Love Story,” which changed another Shakespearean tragedy –Romeo and Juliet In this case – the head.
