August 7, 2023
Ophelia’s Secret: Agency and Conceptual Cohesion in Art
The title seems very opaque and ambiguous, I’m sure (welcome to my world). “Ophelia’s secret? What secret? Ophelia who?” I hear you ask. “And what on earth do you mean by ‘agency and conceptual cohesion’?”
First things first: With apologies to non-fictional Ophelias (and any secret they might have) out there, there is only one Ophelia: Shakespeare’s Ophelia.
Ophelia is a character in William Shakespeare’s drama Hamlet (1599-1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet’s actions, ends up in a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning.
Wikipedia
So, what is Ophelia’s secret, and what does it have to do with agency and cohesion in art? To explore thisLike hell! Rather, I first began composing the album and then, along the way, I discovered the lessons., I composed a music album titled Ophelia’s Secret.
Ophelia’s Secret: an Exploration of Literary Space
Every music album I’ve made is an exploration of literary space. Recall Goblin Market, Hecate’s Dream, and even – more ambiguously – The Undead Muse. But there was an important difference with Ophelia’s Secret.
Namely, what was that secret?
As it often happens in art, I had absolutely zero idea when I came up with the title – which, I should mention, happened very early on in the process of composing the songs; maybe in the second song. Entirely subconsciously, I felt the title of the album should be “Ophelia’s Secret”, without knowing what it meant. Perhaps I wanted to find out.
And I did.
A Voiceless Character
In my doctoral dissertation, referring to Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the eponymous count, I make the following observation (p80): “Paradoxically, for a novel built around a multitude of narrative voices and named after him, Count Dracula is the only character whose voice remains unheard – excepting for relatively short and presumably heavily sanitized and edited excerpts”.
Ophelia faces a somewhat similar problem in Hamlet. Though obviously it’s Hamlet’s story, it’s still fascinating how much of the action relies on her. She is used by her father and Claudius against Hamlet, by Hamlet against them, and her eventual madness and demise is pivotal in driving the events leading to the end of the play.
And yet she has no agency in the play; no voice.
The Subtle Ironies of Postrock Music
Postrock and postmetal are often instrumental; they’re about feel (affect) rather than plot. Still, most of my albums contain some spoken parts, for instance, public-domain recordings of poems.
Looking for suitable excerpts for Ophelia in Hamlet, I discovered there are very few, very short, and rather uninspiring – though many of the album’s songs indeed feature quotes from the play. Take this for example, “Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind”, from III.i.111:
Click to display the embedded Bandcamp player
Still, the problem persisted. How would I give Ophelia her agency back? That became the whole point of the album – in a way, her secret. An album focusing on Ophelia and her lack of agency in the play simply had to give her back her agency.
And then I discovered – accidentally – the solution (I mean, art is about misunderstandings and errors, if you think about it). Outside Shakespeare.
Ophelia’s Secret and Walter de la Mare
Walter de la Mare was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, mostly known for children’s literature. Nonetheless, he was a diverse writer, having also composed horror stories and poems focusing on Shakespearean characters.
So, imagine my surprise when – scanning LibriVox for public recordings of Hamlet (having resigned myself to it) – I accidentally discovered de la Mare and his poem “Ophelia”:
There runs a crisscross pattern of small leaves
Wikisource
Espalier, in a fading summer air,
And there Ophelia walks, an azure flower,
Whom wind, and snowflakes, and the sudden rain
Of love’s wild skies have purified to heaven.
There is a beauty past all weeping now
In that sweet, crooked mouth, that vacant smile;
Only a lonely grey in those mad eyes,
Which never on earth shall learn their loneliness.
And when amid startled birds she sings lament,
Mocking in hope the long voice of the stream,
It seems her heart’s lute hath a broken string.
Ivy she hath, that to old ruin clings;
And rosemary, that sees remembrance fade;
And pansies, deeper than the gloom of dreams;
But ah! if utterable, would this earth
Remain the base, unreal thing it is?
Better be out of sight of peering eyes;
Out — out of hearing of all-useless words,
Spoken of tedious tongues in heedless ears.
And lest, at last, the world should learn heart-secrets;
Lest that sweet wolf from some dim thicket steal;
Better the glassy horror of the stream.
It all fell into place. I found an excellent recording of the poem on LibriVox, and the song – “Stoic, Calm; no more” – became my album favorite:
Click to display the embedded Bandcamp player
Ophelia’s Secret: Conceptual Cohesion Is Worth Fighting for
The secret of… Ophelia’s Secret is that maintaining cohesion of your concepts can be hard, yet it is definitely worth it.
No other excerpt from Shakespeare’s play would do justice to an album the purpose of which was to highlight Ophelia’s importance in the narrative. I mean, to use Gödel and my favorite metaphor, a system that is complex enough will always entail a proposition that is unprovable within the system.
In other words, how could a play that has removed Ophelia’s agency can be relied on to directly provide the data supporting her agency?
An easy solution would’ve been to ignore the issue and simply use the few and unsatisfactory excerpts in Hamlet. In my case, I was simply lucky; I just happened to discover de la Mare’s poem. But it’s always best to create your own luck as an artist.
And so, when you write – from flash fiction to an entire novel, it doesn’t matter – make the effort to maintain conceptual consistency. If something feels off in a character’s personality, reconsider. If your symbolism doesn’t make sense in the context, revise. And if your worldbuilding, for all its splendor, leaves unanswered sociocultural questions, reflect.
Creating connections is among the best things you can offer your work. And to do that, conceptual cohesion is a must.
You can listen to the entire album on YouTube and Bandcamp. I recommend Bandcamp (from where you can also download it for free, entering 0 as “Name your price”), because YouTube might show you ads placed there by Google, against my will. Needless to say, they don’t share any profits with me, either. I only offer YouTube as a convenience for those who want it.
2 Comments
Comments are closed for posts older than 90 days
Shakespeare was not kind to Ophelia; I’ve always wondered why she had to die.
I think one of Shakespeare’s weaknesses was his excessive reliance on forced plot points. Ophelia’s demise is one example, but in Othello it’s the entire structure that is flimsy. The whole play is basically one giant plot hole, with dozens of “hang-on-a-minute’s” where a simple question or action would’ve foiled Iago’s plans. But, oh well, where’s the fun in that, I guess!