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Shakespeare might not have made Ophelia the main character, but it seems Taylor Swift<\/a> is putting the heroine center stage on her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”<\/a><\/p>\n On the Aug. 13 episode of the “New Heights” podcast<\/a>, Swift noted that “Hamlet” played a role in her newest era. And there’s an argument to be made that the cover art and first title track, “The Fate of Ophelia,”<\/a> point towards the dark destiny of Hamlet\u2019s love interest.<\/p>\n “(Travis) may not have read ‘Hamlet’, but I explained it to him,” Swift said on the two hour podcast.<\/p>\n “Don’t tell my middle school English teacher,” Travis Kelce<\/a> added to which Jason Kelce<\/a> added, “SparkNotes.”<\/p>\n “It’s all right, I watched ‘The Lion King,'” Travis responded and Jason replied, “Wait, ‘Lion King’ is based off of Hamlet.'”<\/p>\n Swift, emphatically replied, “Yes.”<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t read “Hamlet” or forgot the plot, here\u2019s a brief synopsis. Ophelia is a young noblewoman whose fate is controlled by three men: Hamlet, the prince; Polonius, her father; and\u00a0Laertes, her brother.<\/p>\n The love story between Ophelia and Hamlet collapses under pressure from her family and the rot of the Danish court. Hamlet kills her father and becomes emotionally distant. At times, he is cruel towards her. She descends into madness, and in Act IV, Scene VII, Queen Gertrude \u2013 the only other woman in the original play \u2013 delivers the news that Ophelia fell from a willow tree into a brook. Her clothes drag her under to her death.<\/p>\n Whether the death was self-inflicted or by accident is ambiguous. Literary experts can argue both angles, but her heartbreak is undeniable.<\/p>\n Swift may depict the Shakespeare scene with a modern twist. “Willow”<\/a> is a song she wrote on her “Evermore” album at the time she was dating Joe Alwyn. The English actor cowrote three songs under the pseudonym William Bowery on that album: “Champagne Problems,” “Coney Island” and “Evermore.” Swift and Alwyn broke up before the Eras Tour<\/a> and the singer referenced in her 11th<\/sup> era, “The Tortured Poets Department,” that she could doing the record-shattering show with a broken heart.<\/p>\n She \u2013 like Ophelia \u2013 fell out of the “Willow” tree.<\/p>\n In the 19th<\/sup> Century in London, Sir John Everett Millais painted “Ophelia.”<\/p>\n The Pre-Raphaelite artist took inspiration from “Hamlet” and splashed oil-based paint onto a canvas culminating in a masterpiece. Ophelia is seen with her head slightly above water in the moment before her demise. Swift’s album cover is a present-day take of her in a bathtub. Her cat eye and bold red lip are just above the water line, while her body and sequined outfit is submerged.<\/p>\nWhat was the fate of Ophelia in ‘Hamlet’?<\/h2>\n
‘We never painted by the numbers baby’<\/h2>\n