Frailty, frailty, thy name is toxic masculinity. gendered mimesis of the power struggle in Hamlet, Ophelia, and The Northman

Emma de Beus

doi:10.13128/lea-1824-484x-13644

Frailty, frailty, thy name is toxic masculinity. gendered mimesis of the power struggle in Hamlet, Ophelia, and The Northman

Emma de Beus

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the features of Hamlet that allow for a new understanding of the play through gendered mimesis. Long discussed as a revenge tragedy and as an exemplary model of mimes, Hamlet is in itself a deliberate and self-aware remake of earlier iterations of this tale and the revenge tragedy genre, and it has been more or less freely adapted over the centuries across multiple genres. Here two cinematic adaptations will be discussed: Ophelia (2018) and The Northman (2022), with special focus on the key female characters of Ophelia and Gertrude.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3-16
Journal	LEA - Lingue e Letterature d'Oriente e d'Occidente
Volume	11
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.13128/lea-1824-484x-13644
Publication status	Published - 23 Dec 2022
Externally published	Yes

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10.13128/lea-1824-484x-13644Licence: CC BY

Frailty, frailty, thy name is toxic masculinity. gendered mimesis of the power struggle in Hamlet, Ophelia, and The Northman
Copyright 2022 the authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.
Final published version, 242 KBLicence: CC BY

Shakespeare and light: a new, interdisciplinary paradigm for reading adaptations through physics
de Beus, E. (Author), Burnett, M. (Supervisor), Arredondo-Arechavala, M. (Supervisor) & Lamb, E. (Supervisor), Jul 2026
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy

Cite this

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Frailty, frailty, thy name is toxic masculinity. gendered mimesis of the power struggle in Hamlet, Ophelia, and The Northman

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Shakespeare and light: a new, interdisciplinary paradigm for reading adaptations through physics

Cite this