Kimberley Rhodes: Ophelia and Victorian Visual Culture. Representing Body Politics in the Nineteenth Century. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. Pp. xii + 212. Cloth £ 55.00.

Illustrations to Shakespeare’s plays as a form of creative criticism and commentary have only recently been studied with more than casual or somewhat amateurish interest, though as early as 1959 Moelwyn Merchant had pointed the way with his influential Shakespeare and the Artist. Modern editions frequently include examples of artists’ impressions, and useful material can often be found in catalogues of exhibitions; but analytical studies of Shakespearean characters or scenes and their reception by painters, illustrators and other visual artists are comparatively rare. Kimberley Rhodes, by education and training an art historian rather than a literary critic, has produced a carefully researched and original account of Shakespeare’s Ophelia and her representation in Victorian art. It is her broad view of ‘visual culture’, embracing text, stage and performance, art history and cultural trends, including feminist criticism, that makes her book valuable and stimulating.

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