Abstract
This paper examines how the perception of plants as ornaments or passive resources – central to the logic of the Anthropocene – has shaped interpretations of Ophelia’s use of flowers in Hamlet as meaningless or mad. Focusing on Act 4, Scene 5, it explores how both criticism and film adaptations have erased the presence and agency of real plants on stage, thus reducing Ophelia to a powerless, incoherent figure. In contrast, this article proposes a phytocritical reading that takes seriously the material and symbolic presence of flowers in her hands. Drawing on early modern herbals and new materialist ecocriticism, it argues that Ophelia acts with deliberate botanical knowledge, offering plants as both remedy and accusation. Her gestures, often misread as nonsense, are reframed as a radical form of ecological and political agency. In doing so, this reading reimagines Ophelia not as a victim but as a prophetic figure – one who speaks from the margins of court and text, and who challenges the intertwined forces of patriarchal control and environmental neglect.
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© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- Friedrich Nietzsche and René Wellek’s Concept of Literary History (Neo-Idealistic Acceptance among Slavonic Literatures)
- « Sourire au milieu du pillage ». La dénonciation du néolibéralisme dans le théâtre d’Eudes Labrusse : Le Rêve d’Alvaro
- An Ophelia for the Anthropocene: Floral Agency and the Rewriting of Ophelia’s Victimhood in Hamlet
- Music Writing and Community Construction in A Raisin in the Sun
- Transgenerational Trauma, Belated Witnessing, and Resilience in Jacqueline Woodson’s Red at the Bone
- Nagasaki’s Scar: The Formation, Reference, and Transformation of Nuclear Explosion Memory in A Pale View of Hills
- Reviews
- Mona Körte, Elisa Ronzheimer und Sebastian Schönbeck, Hgg.: Wechselwörter. Personalpronomen in Bewegung (Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 2025. 274 S.
- James V. Morrison: Comedy in Literature and Popular Culture: From Aristophanes to Saturday Night Live. London: Routledge, 2025. ix + 233 pp.
- Jutta Müller-Tamm und Sylwia Werner, Hgg.: Mobile Avantgarden. Netzwerke der Moderne im nördlichen und östlichen Europa (WeltLiteraturen / World Literatures, Bd. 25). Berlin und Boston: De Gruyter, 2025. 250 S.
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Contributions
- Friedrich Nietzsche and René Wellek’s Concept of Literary History (Neo-Idealistic Acceptance among Slavonic Literatures)
- « Sourire au milieu du pillage ». La dénonciation du néolibéralisme dans le théâtre d’Eudes Labrusse : Le Rêve d’Alvaro
- An Ophelia for the Anthropocene: Floral Agency and the Rewriting of Ophelia’s Victimhood in Hamlet
- Music Writing and Community Construction in A Raisin in the Sun
- Transgenerational Trauma, Belated Witnessing, and Resilience in Jacqueline Woodson’s Red at the Bone
- Nagasaki’s Scar: The Formation, Reference, and Transformation of Nuclear Explosion Memory in A Pale View of Hills
- Reviews
- Mona Körte, Elisa Ronzheimer und Sebastian Schönbeck, Hgg.: Wechselwörter. Personalpronomen in Bewegung (Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 2025. 274 S.
- James V. Morrison: Comedy in Literature and Popular Culture: From Aristophanes to Saturday Night Live. London: Routledge, 2025. ix + 233 pp.
- Jutta Müller-Tamm und Sylwia Werner, Hgg.: Mobile Avantgarden. Netzwerke der Moderne im nördlichen und östlichen Europa (WeltLiteraturen / World Literatures, Bd. 25). Berlin und Boston: De Gruyter, 2025. 250 S.