“THE LADY OF SHALOTT”, Alfred Tennyson
1.VICTORIAN PERIOD
The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom
marked the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British
Empire. However it is commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria’s
rule between 1837 and 1901. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era)
Queen Victoria had the longest reign in
British history, and the cultural, political, economic, industrial and
scientific changes that occurred during her reign were remarkable. When
Victoria ascended to the throne, Britain was essentially agrarian and rural;
upon her death, the country was highly industrialized and connected by an
expansive railway network. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era)
A lot of
changes were brought as the consequences of the First Industrial Revolution,
because it made the people leave the countryside to go to the city to look for
a job. It is for that reason that the bourgeois social class was that one that
defended these changes and, as we have said, there was a progressive division
of Illustrated models and nobility as
holders of the ownership of the economic resources and political power.
Moreover, the revolution led to the rise of railways across the country and
great leaps forward in engineering, most famously by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era)
Victorian England saw great expansion
of wealth, power and culture. In religion, the Victorians experienced a great
age of doubt, the firsts that called into question institutional Christianity
on such a large scale. In literature and in other arts, the Victorians
attempted to combine Romantic emphases upon self, emotion and imagination with
Neoclassical ones upon the public role of art and a corollary responsibility of
the artist. In ideology, politics and society, the Victorians created
astonishing innovation and change: democracy, feminism, union of workers,
socialism.
Moreover, in
this period the concept “invention” is created and, with it, the idea of the
existence of solutions for all the problems.
( http://www.family-ancestry.co.uk/history/victorians/)
Another important thing from the Victorian period was the status
of women. During the era symbolized by the reign of British monarch Queen
Victoria, difficulties
escalated
for women because of the vision of the “ideal woman” shared by the most in the
society. The legal rights of married women were similar to those of children;
they could not vote or sue or even own property. Also, they were seen as pure
and clean, because of that, their bodies were seen as temples which should not
be adorned with make-up nor used for physical exertion or pleasurable sex. The
role of women was to have children and tend to the house. They could not hold a
job unless it was that of a teacher or a domestic servant, nor were they
allowed to have their own checking accounts or savings accounts. However, great
changes in the situation of women took place in the 19th century, especially
concerning marriage laws and the legal status of women. The situation that
father always received custody of their children, leaving the mother completely
without any rights, slowly started to change. The “Custody of Infants Act” in
1839 gave mothers of unblemished character access to their children in the
event of separation or divorce, and the “Matrimonial Causes Act” in 1857 gave
women limited access to divorce. But while the husband only had to prove his
wife’s adultery, a woman had to prove her husband had not only committed
adultery but also incest, bigamy, cruelty or desertion. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Victorian_era)
2.VICTORIAN LITERATURE
Victorian literature is that one
produced during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901, and corresponds
to the Victorian period. It forms a link between Romantic authors and the
different literature of the 20th century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature)
The Victorian literature is a combination of Romanticism, which
extols emotions and imagination, and Neoclassicism, in which the role of the
artist is reaffirmed; however, in Victorian Period the sense of social
responsibility is appeared. So, it is one of the differences between Victorian
and Romantic writers. (“Enciclopedia Larousse Multimedia”)
The Victorian Period, from the coronation
of Queen Victoria (1837) to her death (1901), was an epoch of social
transformations which obliged the authors to take positions about the more
immediately questions. So, although Romantic expressions carried on dominating
the English Literature during all over the century, the attention of almost all
writers was going to questions such as the development of the English
bourgeois, the mass’ education, the industrial progress and, overall, the
situation of the working class. (http://es.encarta.msn.com/text_761558048___22/Literatura_inglesa.html)
As we have said before, the Victorian
Period receives influences from Romanticism, such as the representation of
nationality, Romantic subjectivity, Romantic sexuality…Victorian writes also
explore the relationship between nature and human life, as Romantics did. Love
is also important through Victorian authors, and it is also an inheritance from
Romanticism.
The important writing of the Victorian
period was a literature addressed with
great immediacy to the needs of the age, to the particular temper of mind which
had grown up within a society seeking adjustment to the conditions of modern
life. So, Victorian literature was predominantly a literature of ideas, which
were brought into direct relation with the daily concerns of the reading
public. (http://www.victorianweb.org/books/alienvision/introduction.html)
In addition,
the reclaim of the past was a major part of Victorian literature with an
interest in both classical literature but also the medieval literature of
England. Victorians loved the heroic stories of knights of old and they hoped
to regain some of that noble behaviour and impress it upon the people at home
and in the wider empire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature)
The most important poets of
Victorianism were Alfred Tennyson who, although began inside the purest
Romanticism, was interested in religious problems about faith, in the social
change and in politics; Robert Browing and Mathew Arnold. (http://es.encarta.msn.com/text_761558048___22/Literatura_inglesa.html)
We also have to say that the novel
became the most important literary form in the 20th century, because the middle
class looked for an entertainment literature which told people about social
relations, individual problems…(“Enciclopedia Larousse Multimedia”) Maybe,
a good examples of this kind of novels are those ones written by Jane Austen.
Finally, it is clear that as
Romanticism influenced Victorianism in some aspects, the literature of the
Victorian Age also influenced other writers. For example, writers from the
former colony of the United States of America and the remaining colonies of
Australia, New Zealand and Canada could not avoid being influenced by the
literature of Britain and they are often classed as a part of Victorian
literature, although they were gradually developing their own distinctive
voices. Some of these writers were Grant Allen, Adam Lindsay Gordon, Herman Melville,
etc… (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature)
3.ALFRED TENNYSON
Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby,
England on August 6, 1809. He was the fourth of twelve children born to George
and Elizabeth Tennyson. His father, a church reverend, supervised his sons’
private education, though his heavy drinking impeded his ability to fulfill his
duties. Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their
teens, and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred
was only 17. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Tennyson)
In 1827 Tennyson escaped from the troubled atmosphere of his home
when he followed his two older brothers to Trinity College, Cambridge. Tennyson
soon became friendly with a group of undergraduates called “Apostles”, which
met to discuss literary issues. In that group he met Arthur Henry Hallam, who
soon became his best friend. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Tennyson)
In the
spring of 1831, Tennyson’s father died, forcing him to leave Cambridge before
taking his degree. He returned to his home, with his family. His friend Hallam
came to stay with him during the summer and became engaged to Tennyson’s
sister, Emilia Tennyson. (http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/)
In 1833 Tennyson published his second book, which included his
best-known poem, “The lady of Shalott”. That same year he received the most
devastating blow of his entire life: his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam had died
because of a cerebral haemorrhage while he was on holiday in Vienna. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Tennyson)
It was in
1850 when Tennyson reached the pinnacle if his career, being appointed Poet
Laureate in succession to William Wordsworth, and in the same year he produced
his master piece “In Memoriam A.H.H.”, which represents the poet’s struggles
not only with the news of his best friend’s death, but also with the new
developments in astronomy, biology and geology that were diminishing man’s
stature
on the scale
of evolutionary time. With his title of Poet Laureate he became the most
popular poet in Victorian England and could finally afford to marry Emily
Sellwood, whom he had loved since 1836. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Tennyson)
Queen Victoria was an ardent admirer of his work, and in 1884
created him Baron Tennyson of Aldworth. He was the first English writer raised
to the Peerage.
In 1892, at the age of 83, he died of heart failure and was buried
among his illustrious literary predecessors at Westminster Abbey. He was
succeeded as second Baron Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an
authorised biography of his father in 1897, and was later the second
Governor-General of Australia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Tennyson)
Although
Tennyson was the most popular poet in England in his own day, he was often the
target of mockery by his immediate successors, the Edwardians and Georgians of
the early twentieth century. Today, however, many critics consider Tennyson to
be greatest poet of the Victorian Age. (http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/)
4. “THE LADY OF SHALOTT”
PART I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road run by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the bearded barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly;
Down to tower'd Camelot;
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy
The Lady of Shalott.”
PART II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two.
She hath no loyal Knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
"I am half sick of shadows,"
said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armor rung
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, burning bright,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me,"
cried
The Lady of Shalott.
PART IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.
And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance --
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right --
The leaves upon her falling light --
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."
BIBLIOGRAPHY: (http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML)
5.ANALYSIS OF THE POEM: “The Lady of
Shalott”
In 1833 Alfred Tennyson published “The
Lady of Shalott”, but it was later revised and published again in its final
form in 1842.
The poem is commonly believed to have
been loosely based upon a story from Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur”
concerning Elaine of Astolat, a maiden who falls in love with Lancelot, but
dies of grief when he cannot return her love. However, Tennyson said that the
poem was based in the 13th century Italian novel entitled “Donna di Scalotta”,
which focuses on the lady’s death and her reception at Camelot rather than her
isolation in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two
subjects not mentioned in “Donna di Scoalotta”.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott)
Actually, “The lady of the Shalott”
tells us the story of a beautiful damsel who lived in the Island of Shalott.
The country people believed that she was a fairy, a kind of goddess whose
supernatural powers helped flower the crop. The lady was enchanted by a spell
which banned her from looking through the windows. She could only observe the
external world through the reflection of a magic mirror. Moreover, she spent
the days weaving some tapestries that represented the scenes discerned in the
mirror.
One day
Lancelot went past the tower singing a beautiful song. The damsel, who was
fascinated by his song, finally succumbed to temptation and looked directly
out. Suddenly, the mirror was broken and a strong storm lashed the castle. The
lady, who was scared out of her wits, shouted: “This curse is come upon me!”.
Then, she left the castle, got in a boat, in which she wrote her name, and
floated down the river to Camelot, knowing that her end would be soon. She was
singing a romantic song until her eyes were closed. She was dead. The water
brought her to Camelot. Nobody knew who she was, and Lancelot, ignoring that he
had been the involuntary reason of her death, praised her beauty and commended
her soul to God.
Related to the structure of the poem, we can say that it is
written in four numbered parts. The first two parts contain four stanzas each,
the third part contains five stanzas and the fourth part contains six stanzas.
Each stanza contains nine lines with the same rhyme scheme “AAAABCCCB”. The “B”
always stands for “Camelot” in the fifth verse and for “Shalott” in the ninth
verse. The “A” and “C” verses are always tetrameter, while the “B” verses are
in trimeter. Moreover, the syntax is line-bound, I mean, most phrases do not
extend past the length of a single line. We can see all those aspects, for
example:
“On either side the river lie A
Long fields of barley and of rye, A
That clothe the wold and meet the sky, A
And thro’ the field the road runs by A
To many-tower’d Camelot; B
And up and down the people go, C
Gazing where the lilies blow C
Round an island there below, C
The island of Shalott.” B
Moreover, reading the poem, you can see
that each of the four parts ends at the moment when descriptions yields to
direct speech. In the first part this speech takes the form of the reaper’s
whispering identification of the lady:
“…And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers “Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott”.
In the second part, it takes the form of
the Lady’s half-sick lament.
“I am half sick of shadows,” said
the Lady of Shalott”
In the third part it is the Lady’s
pronouncement of her doom:
“…The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott”
Finally, in the fourth part, it takes the form of Lancelot’s
blessing:
“…But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”
Talking about Tennyson’s characteristic
poetic structure, we have to say that it always takes the following form: the main
character progresses through a series of discrete sections or panels that may
take the form of landscapes, states of mind, arguments, or test until she or he
has a dream, vision, or other powerful revelation that effects a conversion to
new ways of life and action. (www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/im/improject.html)
This common characteristic of Tennyson can be found in “The Lady of Shalott”,
because the damsel’s life changes when she looks directly out of the window to
see Lancelot, I mean, on looking out through the window, from which she is
banned, the curse comes upon her until her death.
Another distinctive characteristic of
Tennyson’s structure is the sharp separation he achieves between sections in
many of his poems, and this separation is made out by songs, visions,
arguments, actions…
(www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/im/improject.html) In this poem we
can also find two worlds: the world of Shalott and the world of Camelot; and
the musical echoes are the element which is used to form that gap.
In Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poetry, he
incessantly speaks of human mortality. In many of his poems, he speaks of
individuals’ death without their peers’ recognition of their importance. (www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/victorian/previctorian/misc/alt.lqcw.html)
In “The Lady of Shalott”, Alfred Tennyson writes about a woman who
fades away into the shadows. She strives for a life, but she doesn’t succeed,
and she is only remembered for being beautiful. So, we can say that this poem
is a kind of illustration of Tennyson’s fear of fading away and only being
remembered for physical beauty and not for his works.
As we have
said before, the Lady just sees shadows of the world, because she only looks at
the real world through a mirror. That can be related with Plato’s Cave, can’t
it? In Plato, the reflections are the phenomenal world; in Tennyson, the
phenomenal world casts the reflections, and leaving both cave and castle you
will know the real world. Moreover, this distinction between the interior
world, the shadows of the world reflected in the mirror, and the external or
material world gives expression to the Victorian preoccupation with the
contrast between the exterior and the interior worlds. And this ambiguity of
space and reality provides artists with an interesting aesthetic play.
Related to the Victorian image of
women, Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” perfectly embodies this Victorian image of
the ideal woman: virginal, embowered, spiritual, mysterious and dedicated to
her womanly tasks.
Related to nature, we can say that it
is one of the aspects inherited by Romanticism, because as Romantic authors
thought that nature was very important, the Victorian writers also use nature
as an important element through their poems. For example, in “The Lady of
Shalott”, Tennyson tends to describe the environment in detail, because the
more details you are given, the more involved you will be with the story. We
can see this, for example, in the first stanza: “On either side the river
lie / long fields of barley and of rye, / that clothe the wold and meet the sky
/ ant thro’ the field the road runs by / to many-tower’d Camelot; / and up and
down the people go, / gazing where the lilies blow / round an island there
below, / the island of Shalott.” (http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML)
In addition we can also appreciate that
when things go worse the bad also goes worse. So, we can say that nature is
also used to emphasize the actions. For example when the damsel descends from
her tower and finds a boat, the sky breaks out in rain and storm. So, the
abundance of nature is connected to heaven and to man, the grain clothes the
field, joining the earth both to man and to heaven, and the field contains the
road on which all human activity takes place.
If we continue looking for features among Romanticism, we can see
another one, the importance of love which was one of the most important values
for Romanticism. In this poem, the Lady leaves the tower because she has fallen
in love with Lancelot since she listened to him singing a song. Looking
directly out the window and consequently leaving the tower meant her death,
because of the curse, and she knows about it; even so, the damsel abandons it
because she is in love. So, it’s clear that love is really important through this
poem.
Another Romantic feature found in this
poem is the search for freedom, because the damsel is locked in a tower, and
she doesn’t know how the real world is, because she can only see through a
mirror. So, her craving is not strange to know about it when she listens to
Lancelot. In that moment, she falls in love with him, so, she wants to leave
the tower, I mean, before meeting Lancelot, she doesn’t care to be in the
tower, because she was used to live there, but when she sees him and the curse
comes upon her she feels that she has to go out.
6.CONCLUSIÓN
Victorian literature (1837-1901) receives influences from
Romanticism, such as the representation of nationality, Romantic subjectivity,
Romantic sexuality…Victorian writes also explore the relationship between
nature and human life, and about love as Romantics did. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature)
In addition, the important writing of the Victorian period was a literature addressed with great
immediacy to the needs of the age, to the particular temper of mind which had
grown up within a society seeking adjustment to the conditions of modern life.
(http://www.victorianweb.org/books/alienvision/introduction.html)
One of the most important poets of that period is Alfred Tennyson,
one of whose most important poems is “The Lady of Shalott”, a story of a
princess who cannot look at the world except through a reflection in a mirror.
As Sir Lancelot rides by the tower where she must stay, she looks at him, and
the curse comes to term; she dies after she places herself in a small boat and
floats down the river to Camelot, her name written on the boat's stern.
Some consider “The Lady of Shalott” to
be representative of the dilemma that faces artist and writers: to create work
about and celebrating the world, or to enjoy the world by simply living in it.
Others see the poem as concerned with issues of women’s sexuality and their place
in the Victorian world. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott)
To end this essay about the poem “The Lady of Shalott”, I want to
give my opinion. I didn’t know that poem, and when I found it on the internet I
thought that my essay had to be about it. Moreover, I found the coincidence
that Tennyson was the successor of Wordsworth as Poet Laurate, and my last
essay was about Wordsworth. I like this poem very much, it is really beautiful,
because it is about love. The lady leaves all her life to follow Lancelot, with
whom she has fallen in love, and then she died without having met him. It is
really romantic, isn’t it?
So, I recommend that poem to everyone,
because its story is beautiful, romantic and exciting, moreover it is
considered as a masterpiece of Victorian English Literature and it has been
painted by John William Waterhouse.