Swift’s “The Fate of Ophilia” driving fans to Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Commentary by Michael Robinson | Uvalde Hesperian

Top Picture credit: Amazon.com

10-20-25

 Last week, Taylor Swift dropped her new album. “The Life of a Showgirl” featuring the song, The Fate of Ophelia and the media response and reactions on social media have completely saturated social media as well as some traditional media.

 Whether you are a fan of Taylor Swift or not, your Facebook feed as well as other social media channels will likely be pushing clips of the music video, The Fate of Ophelia on your feed. it’s difficult if not impossible to avoid being Swifted.

 The song Fate of Ophilia is an unusual title for a song, especially a pop song. Ophilia is a woman’s name that William Shakespeare featured in his classic play Hamlet as a tragic character of a noble family that took her own life after being spurned by Hamlet. I remember studying the play Hamlet my senior year of high school. The main character Hamlet many teenagers can relate to as he was pensive and full of angst often criticizing the established order of things and rebellious. Before Holden Caulfield the protagonist J.D. Salinger Cacher’s book, The Catcher in the Rye, there was Hamlet.

Salinger’s book. The Catcher in the Rye, was edgy for its time in the 1950’s and was banned in some schools and libraries. Eventually it ended up in high school reading lists.

  Out of curiosity. I asked ChatGPT if the song Fate of Ophelia has spurred a fresh interest in Hamlet and the character Ophilia and ChatGPT said “Yes”.

  In 1985, Austrian Rock Singer Falco recorded Rock Me Amadeus which was a huge hit about the great composer Amadeus Mozart. About that same time, the movie, Amadeus came out. As I graduated high school that year with the intention of going to college majoring in music, the pop culture’s interest in Mozart made my major something cool.

 Many years later in my adult life, I studied German and was finally able to translate the German lyrics in Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus. It was like finding hidden linguistic treasure. 

  Perhaps a small percentage of the huge fanbase of Taylor Swift will take the time to dive deeper into Shakespeare’s Hamlet.