The Fate of Ophelia is Not a Bad Retelling

If there’s two things I know a lot about, it’s Hamlet and Taylor Swift. Therefore, when she announced “The Fate of Ophelia” as the opening single to her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, it felt like a personal gift from Taylor to me. However, despite the excitement, I felt a looming sense of dread. I knew, from the moment I read the title, that I would be subjected to months of discourse from The Public about Hamlet.

You see, having your personal favorite book also be the world’s favorite book has its pros and cons. I am constantly getting to encounter my favorite book in the wild. How awesome is it to know that I could open any book and there’s a fair chance that someone is going to reference my favorite book? That’s a reader’s dream. But it also means that everyone has read it, and everyone has opinions on it. To be clear, this is also true of Taylor Swift. And once The Life of a Showgirl came out, so did the hot takes.

To this day, a whole year after the album, I will see people rushing to defend Ophelia’s honor, proclaiming that Taylor has done her a disservice by misrepresenting the tragic heroine of Hamlet. The consensus was clear: Taylor Swift has written a bad retelling of Hamlet. Personally, though, as a self-proclaimed Hamlet fanatic who has read 22 retellings of Hamlet, I liked the song. 

First and foremost, the song is not about Ophelia. It’s about Taylor Swift. This isn’t like Love Story where she is specifically recontextualizing Romeo and Juliet to have a happy ending. She did reference that song in her behind-the-scenes movie that was in theaters at the album’s release, acknowledging that she does like to see tragedies rewritten to have happy endings. Even still, "The Fate of Ophelia" simply isn’t about giving Ophelia herself a happy ending. At best, it could be seen as an alternate-reality fanfic version of the girl: what if Ophelia was international popstar Taylor Swift who fell in love with Travis Kelce, who is decidedly not Hamlet. Because of this, you can’t call "The Fate of Ophelia" a bad retelling of Hamlet, or say that she is mischaracterizing Ophelia herself, because she wasn’t doing that in the first place. 

All of that being said, it’s not like she doesn’t talk about Ophelia at all. Clearly: it’s the name of the song, and it’s also the inspiration for her album cover photo. Ophelia’s story is used as a contrast to Taylor’s — they both had to deal with various men treating them poorly, but Taylor found a good partner that saved her from sharing a fate with her tragic counterpart. 

The only part of the song that is actively about Ophelia is the second verse: 

The eldest daughter of a nobleman

Ophelia lived in fantasy

But love was a cold bed full of scorpions

The venom stole her sanity

As far as that goes, nothing Taylor says is incorrect. Hamlet takes place within Elsinore castle amongst the nobility of Denmark, and Ophelia is not an exception. She is the younger sister, but still the eldest daughter, of Polonius, who is a very high-ranking officer. She could’ve even been queen one day, according to Gertrude. When Ophelia drowns, they’re uncertain whether or not her death is a suicide; if it was, they wouldn’t be able to give her a Christian burial. As it is, the only reason she is given any amount of honor at all is because of her standing in the court. Outside of the events of the tragedy, Ophelia should’ve been living the high life, all things considered. It’s because of Hamlet’s behavior that things start to go wrong in her life. 

The second half of the verse is where most of the criticism comes from. Taylor claims that the thing that stole her sanity is her bad luck in love (to put it lightly). Despite the royal fantasy, she was lacking the warmth of love. The scorpions stung her and drove her mad. It’s a fair assessment of the way her love life hurt her. I don’t think the blame can fall fully on Hamlet himself, although his “Get thee to a nunnery” moments certainly didn’t help matters. Claudius and Polonius use her as bait for a man they believe to be unhinged, putting her directly in harm's way. Even Laertes, who is largely innocent, is all up in her business with Hamlet (before he turns), preemptively judging her for potential choices. Everyone has something to say regarding Ophelia’s feelings for Hamlet, and she becomes a pawn in a game that she was not asking to play. Yes, it’s Hamlet’s murder of her father that is ultimately her tipping point (chronologically, anyway), but it’s not like she’s having a good time up until then. 

The primary criticism I see of "The Fate of Ophelia" is that it argues that love would’ve saved her, which isn’t fair to the depth of Ophelia’s problems. I don’t think that’s the primary argument of this verse; even if it was, I don’t think it would be as terrible as people seem to think it is. It’s not that her love life was her only problem, it’s that her love life was central to her downfall. If all of the events of the play stayed the same but she was Hamlet’s primary companion (in a Horatio-esque role), she probably would have survived. In fact, I’ve read many retellings where Ophelia lives, and it is often because she is either romantically detached from Hamlet (on good or bad terms) or because she falls in love with someone else (Lisa Klein, I’ll never forgive you). Like it or not, her love life is a major part of her characterization in the play. Her romantic ties to Hamlet are what get her involved and what leads to her demise. 

I get the impression that a lot of people have very strong opinions on Ophelia, and I do understand it. But I think it’s important to remember that she is a fictional character. Her honor has not been disgraced by a Taylor Swift song, even if it was a blasphemous retelling. The sad truth of the matter is that Ophelia is an innocent casualty in the events of the play. And regardless, Taylor Swift isn’t making a point about that one way or another. The single cannot be a bad retelling of Hamlet because it’s not trying to be a retelling of Hamlet. The thesis of "The Fate of Ophelia" is simply that she would’ve been driven mad had she not found a secure love. She is using references to the greatest and probably most well-known story of all time to make this point. 

Honestly, if she had come out and said that this was intentionally her re-imagining of Hamlet, it still wouldn’t be the worst one I’ve read. There’s one book where Ophelia, after the events of the play, gives birth to Hamlet’s baby and then many years later falls in love with Horatio. Falling in love with Travis Kelce is not the most unreasonable suggestion for what could happen to Ophelia.