I, Hamlet here, have just discovered the most amazing literary criticism I've ever laid my eyes on. This news that Peter J. Seng addresses relates to not just me but my lovely Ophelia as well. God, rest her soul. Her spiraling madness following my absence and horrible drowning has left me quite shaken, but Seng's article has brought me deep comfort in knowing at least someone is on my side.
One thing he does wonderfully is pinpointing the blame on Laertes and Polonius, rather than just whining over me like other literary critics do. Come on people I clearly am not as savage and cruel as those roaches. Laertes basically bossed Ophelia around when he said, "Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs, Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open To is unmast'red importunity," and Polonius basically crushed her dreams and soul when Ophelia spoke of our affection. He replied to her and he said, "Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl, Unsifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his tenders as you call them?." Even Seng described Polonius's words to be, "The very diction in which he couches his warning is a slander." My poor Ophelia stood no chance against them.
Let me remind you, I loved Ophelia. Her brother and father may have been too stupid and blind to notice but that is the fact of the matter. I admit that at times I did not give her the love she so much deserved, but you must understand I was grieving my father's death at the time too. Let me refresh your memory to Ophelia's funeral when I said of her, "I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not (with all their quantity of love) Make up my sum." Seng even describes this language of mine to be, "...not the language of trifling, beguilement, or seduction." So sorry Polonius and Laertes, but you got my love for Ophelia way wrong.
Even in her madness, Ophelia hints to Laertes that he is to blame for her downfall. Remember when he described my attention for her as, "A fashion, and a toy in blood; A violet in the youth of nature?" Well, Seng describes Ophelia getting payback by saying, "Now she pays him back in verbal kind:" when she replies in her insanity, "I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died." I am not going to blame all of Ophelia's madness on Laertes and Polonius, but clearly those two had a detrimental effect on her. My poor Ophelia had disgraceful family, yet I'm Glad Peter J. Seng set all back to normal in my life by describing me as I truly was, A kind man who loved Ophelia and caused her no purposeful harm.
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