Today, we are exploring a work by Taylor Swift – "Ophelia". Please watch the song with the original music video together with the class.

📌 The song refers to this work. Describe and analyse the work with the help of the questions.

📌Learn more about the background of the work.

The Original: Ophelia

The motif of Ophelia, a tragic figure from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, is deeply embedded in the art history of the 19th century. Driven to madness by grief and betrayal, Ophelia drowns while weaving flower garlands. For Victorian society, she became the ultimate symbol of tragic femininity and lost innocence. Historically, Ophelia is often interpreted as a victim of patriarchal structures, controlled and emotionally manipulated by the men in her life. One could say, from a modern perspective, that she is "gaslit" until she loses her grip on reality and escapes into insanity. This made her the perfect subject for artists fascinated by the intersection of beauty, tragedy, and nature.

The most iconic and influential depiction of this scene is the painting "Ophelia" (1851–1852) by Sir John Everett Millais. Millais was a leading member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a rebellious group of young English artists who rejected the idealized and formulaic compositions of the Royal Academy. They sought to return to the intense color, abundant detail, and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art, which predated the High Renaissance master Raphael—hence their name. In pursuit of their motto, "truth to nature," Millais painted the lush, overgrown riverbank directly from life over a period of five months. This practice of painting outdoors, known as plein-air painting, was revolutionary at the time. He meticulously rendered every leaf, reed, and flower with botanical accuracy before adding the figure of Ophelia in his London studio.

This is where the captivating and dark anecdote behind the masterpiece begins. The model for Ophelia was Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, a poet and artist who became the quintessential muse for the Pre-Raphaelite circle. To capture the drowning scene, Siddal had to pose for hours on end in a bathtub full of water, heated from below by oil lamps. Deeply absorbed in his work, Millais failed to notice when the lamps went out. The water grew icy cold, and Siddal, remaining still, became severely ill with pneumonia. Her father threatened Millais with legal action, forcing the artist to pay her medical bills. This incident sheds light on the often-exploitative conditions models endured.

However, the tragedy extends far beyond the studio. Siddal was more than a muse; she was a talented painter and poet in her own right, whose genius was recognized and supported by the influential art critic John Ruskin. Her life, however, was marked by illness and misfortune. Her tumultuous marriage to fellow Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti was overshadowed by depression, particularly after the stillbirth of their daughter. In 1862, Elizabeth Siddal died from an overdose of laudanum, an opium-based tincture, in what is widely considered a suicide. This chilling parallel between the drowning Ophelia in the painting and the tragic, self-inflicted death of the model who portrayed her gives Millais’ work a profound and haunting echo, forever linking the painted tragedy with a real one.

📌 Now watch and listen to the music video again and then answer the questions.