Ophelia You're Breaking our Heart

Westmont English Professor Paul Willis will speak on “Ophelia, You’re Breaking Our Heart: The American Appeal of Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroine” at 7 p.m. March 7 in Hieronymus Lounge, Westmont. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Willis’ talk is the Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture for the spring semester. Westmont Professors Cheri Larsen Hoeckley (English) and John Blondell (Theatre Arts) will respond.

Willis has co-edited an anthology of contemporary American poems, “In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare,” with Santa Barbara City College Professor David Starkey. The two received more poems from their contributors about Ophelia in “Hamlet” than about any other character in Shakespeare’s canon.  In his lecture, Willis will trace the history of the ways in which Ophelia has been understood and discuss possible reasons for her current cult-figure status.

“In A Fine Frenzy” (University of Iowa Press) will be released on April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday. Willis will read selections from the anthology at 7:30 p.m. April 28 at Borders Bookstore in downtown Santa Barbara.

Hieronymus Lounge is in Kerrwood Hall, the main administration building on the upper Westmont campus. For directions, visit www.westmont.edu. For more information, contact the public affairs office at (805) 565-7057 or pubaffairs@westmont.edu.