On the combination of the Ophelian and the narcissistic in the poetry of Georges Rodenbach

Abstract

The paper examines a special place that the characters of Ophelia and Narcissus, so closely connected with the motif of water, occupy in the poetic imaginarium of George Rodenbach. What we deal with here is an unhealthy obsession within which two characters of literature and mythology, unhappily in love, are presented as two alter egos of the poet himself. An endless sequence of images associating water with death reveals the fascination and trepidation of the symbolist, who uses the Opheliac depths and Narcissus’s water mirror as a reflection of different states of his soul.