COMPARISON
BETWEEN “THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER” AND “THE LADY OF SHALOTT”.
INTRODUCTION:
In this work we are going to compare two poems, one of which is Romantic
and the other is a Victorian poem. The Romantic poem is called “The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner” written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Victorian poem is
called “The Lady of the Shalott” written by Alfred Tennyson.
Through this comparison we are going to see the influences of
Romanticism in a Victorian author such as Alfred Tennyson and also the
similarities and the differences between a Romantic writer and a Victorian
writer.
The Victorian
Period, from the coronation of Queen Victoria (1837) to her death (1901), was a
period 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 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)
The English "Romantic" movement emphasized the rule of
imagination over formal rules and reality. Characteristics included: the cult
of sensibility and fashionable melancholy; belief in noble savages, peasants,
and children; love of Nature; medievalism; mysticism; individualism; rejection
of neo-classical forms like the heroic couplet and efforts to make poetic
diction closer to everyday speech; fascination with the grotesque; political
rebellion; revival of earlier figures, especially Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton.
(http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/english/canary/poets19.html)
The important
writing of the Victorian period was a
literature addressed with great immediacy to the needs of the age. 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 poets who
dominated the first half of Victoria’s reign were true children of the Romantic
Movement, and all of them looked up to the great poets of that Era as models
and mentors. The Victorians poets were facing a very changed state of society
from that the Romantics wrote of: the class structure was changing, almost
before their eyes, with the middle class taking over positions of influence
from the old aristocracy, and bringing a very different set of values;
industrialisation was becoming difficult to ignore; religious faith was being
undermined by a spirit of sceptical enquiry directed at the Bible, and by the
discoveries of geologists and biologists. (Barnard, Robert; A Short Story of
English Literature, )
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, critic and philosopher who
was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic
Movement in England. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan,
as well as his major prose work Biographia Literaria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge#Early_Life_and_Education)
Coleridge wrote what have been called "supernatural" poems such
as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Coleridge’s tone of voice is obsessive, incantatory,
like a witch-doctor crying out formulas from tribal memory. The Ancient
Mariner is in fact a highly sophisticated poem, but Coleridge disguises
this by his brilliant use of every device from the balladist’s art-
alliteration, onomatopoeia, internal rhyme, above all repetition.
(Barnard, Robert; A
Short Story of English Literature, )
In spite of the debt Coleridge owed to Elizabethan
books of travel and mariners’ tales, both for incident, superstition and
individual phrases, the voyage soon takes on the air of ritual and of myth,
with nature powerfully yet mysteriously animated, the sailors some kind of
chorus, half in and half out of the action, and the albatross a bird of
priestly aspect and function. (Barnard, Robert; A Short Story of
English Literature, )
PLOT SUMMARY:
“The rime of the Ancient Mariner” relates the supernatural events
experienced by a mariner on a long sea voyage.
The crew and the mariner live different troubles and an albatross
appears as a savior but the mariner shoots the bird down. The other sailors are
angry with the mariner. In this moment the mariner is alone because the sailors
are annoyed with him, here we can see how the individual is isolated.
Eventually, in a strange passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel.
On board are Death and the “Night-mare Life-in-Death”, who are playing dice for
the souls of the crew.
Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the Mariner. He was punished for his
killing of the albatross. The crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, but
as penance for his deed, the Mariner is forced to wander the earth and tell his
story as a teaching lesson. In this part of the poem we can see the use of
mythological creatures which is commonly used in the Romantic poems. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner)
“THE LADY OF SHALOTT” by ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
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 the
greatest poet of the Victorian Age. (http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/)
His best known
anthology-piece, The Lady of Shalott, imitates
the ballad in form, but in a smooth, highly sophisticated way, which has
nothing of the rugged urgency of The
Ancient Mariner. The lady, immured in her castle, weaving a web of the
sights she sees in her mirror, is a haunting figure in her own right. The poem
represent the activity, the real world, sex, is splendidly managed as a riot of
colour, noise and astral imaginery, but the desire of the lady to see her
knight directly, without the mirror as intermediary. This brings on the lady
the mysterious curse, and in the last section she is gradually drained of life
as she floats down the river.
(Barnard, Robert; A Short Story of English
Literature,Universitetsforlaget 1984;pag.119)
We may see the lady as representing the artist,
removed from life even as she reflects it, who is killed by the touch of
reality. We may see, in aspects of her fate, a comment on Victorian womanhood.
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)
ANALYSIS OF “THE LADY OF SHALOTT”:
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.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott)
According to the
structure of the poem, we can see that it is written in four numbered parts.
The first two parts contain four stanzas, 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, this is, 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
Furthermore,
reading the poem, you can observe 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 to
the structure that Tennyson follows in his poetry, we can say that the main
character progresses across several events that always take place in
landscapes, across arguments and different states of mind such as dreams or
visions. (www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/im/improject.html)
This
feature can be seen perfectly in Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott” because
we have a character whose life changed from the moment she sees Lancelot
through the window to her death.
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 this poem we can see a character whose life was not
important because she was locked inside a tower and at the end she is
remembered by the inhabitants of the town for being beautiful and not for her
works.
ROMANTIC
INFLUENCES IN THE VICTORIAN POEM “THE LADY OF SHALOTT”:
The first Romantic characteristic that we can see in
“The Lady of Shalott” is the importance of the individual. The
Romantics emphasized the special qualities of each individual’s mind, the most
important thing for the Romantics is the individual instead of society. (Barnard, Robert; A Short Story of English
Literature,Universitetsforlaget 1984;pag 82)
According to Tennyson a woman who is in solitude is
truly herself, only in solitude can she come adequately to know herself. Only
in solitude a woman like the lady of Shalott can exercise the most valuable
faculty, the Imagination. (Barnard, Robert; A Short Story of English
Literature,Universitetsforlaget 1984;pag 83)
In
the Romantic poem “The Ancient Mariner” there is also a man who is in solitude
in several times, specially when the crew members are annoyed with him because
he shoots the albatross down and when the sailors die and he is condemned to
wander the earth telling his story as a penance.
Another
important characteristic which is common in the Romantic poems and that we can
see in this Victorian poem is the use of Imagination.
“The
Lady of Shalott” is like a fairy tale where imagination is the main characteristic.
We can find this imagination in many Romantic and Victorian poems, specially
those which make reference to the Medieval time.
In the “The Lady 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. The Lady of Shalott use her
imagination to escape from solitude when she is looking through the
mirror.
Where intelligence was limited, the
imagination was our hope of contact with eternal forces, with the whole
spiritual world.
The Romantics were fascinated by the
faculty of imagination. They explored the means of penetrating down to
subconscious levels: dreams, drugs, madness, hypnosis, etc. These were the
Romantics’ ways of escaping from a world that had become excessively rational,
as well as materialistic and ugly. (Barnard, Robert; A
Short Story of English Literature,Universitetsforlaget 1984;pag 84)
This
characteristic can be seen also in the Coleridge’s poem “The Ancient Mariner”
when two fantastic figures appear; the Death and the Life-in-Death. When the
albatross appears the imagination is also present because this bird can be
related with reality and freedom.
Another
important characteristic that we can see in both, the Romantic and the
Victorian poems, is the predominance of Nature and the use of the
landscape where the action takes place.
The
natural world now comes to the forefront of the poetic imagination- provides
the dominant subject matter, is the major source of imaginery. (Barnard, Robert; A Short Story of English
Literature,Universitetsforlaget 1984;pag 82)
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)
We can see how nature goes
together with man or with woman in this case. So we can say that nature is used
to emphasize the actions. When the lady descends from the tower and finds a
boat, the sky breaks out in rain and storm. Here we can see how nature is
present in each of the events that take place through the story.
In Coleridge’s poem, nature is
also important. The action in this poem takes place on the sea and thanks to
that we can see how nature is present in the whole story and determines the
future of the characters.
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. This Romantic
characteristic is not present in Coleridge’s poem because this poem is about
adventures that take place in the sea during a long voyage. So, that can be a
difference between “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “The Lady of Shalott”.
Another Romantic
feature found in “The Lady of Shalott” 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 it through a mirror. This characteristic
shows us another difference between Coleridge’s poem and Tennyson’s poem. The
Mariner in Coleridge’s poem is looking for land and not for freedom although at
the end the Ancient Mariner is captured by the Life-in-Death and he would be
free.
To finish that search for
Romantic features in a Victorian poem we must mention the last one, the
Romantic poets’ attraction to the Medieval world. The medieval
world was a world of fantasy where love is the main feature and where
everything could take place.
In “The Lady of Shalott”
everything is related with this world, from the castle where the damsel is
trapped to the love she feels to Lancelot and the fantastic death of the lady
on a boat through she is crossing the river. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
is a poem that could be perfectly situated in the Medieval time because through
its reading we can see the presence of fantastic creatures, some can be
mythological creatures and the sea creatures that accompanied the Mariner when
the crew members are died, the sailors and the Mariner don’t know what these
creatures are and they thought that they can be part of their destiny.
CONCLUSION:
Victorian
literature (1837-1901) receives influences from Romanticism, such as the
representation of nationality, Romantic subjectivity, Romantic
sexuality…Victorian writers also explore the relationship between nature and human
life, and about love as Romantics did.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature)
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.
Through that story
we can see the influences of Romanticism in this Victorian poem.
I have chosen a
Romantic poem called “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” to see more clearly the
Romantic characteristics trying to find these in the Victorian poem “The lady
of Shalott”, even though we have found more features that are not present in
the Coleridge’s poem such as the presence of love. I have chosen a Coleridge’s
poem, specially “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” because this poem is similar
in some aspects and can be related with “The Lady of Shalott”. Both poems are
about an individual that is in solitude in a world of mystery and fantasy, both
are looking for something and they are involved by nature. Through these poems
we can see how men and women are together with nature and depend on this
nature.
To end this essay
about the Romantic influences in the poem “The Lady of Shalott”, I want to give
my opinion. I didn’t know that poem but when I read it I could see that in this
poem there are a lot of Romantic features as
we have seen above. On the other hand, I have chosen this poem because
the story is really beautiful because it is about love. The lady leaves all her
life to follow Lancelot, but she died without having met him. So, this poem
should be read by anyone who love romantic stories that take place in a
fantastic world like the Medieval world.
There is also a
beautiful picture painted by John William Waterhouse. As I said above “The Lady
of Shalott” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” are two poems that could be
together because they are about an individual that is in solitude in the middle
of nature. Both poems have an unhappy ending. But they can teach us something
interesting about life.
SOURCES
·
Barnard, Robert; A Short
Story of English Literature,Universitetsforlaget 1984.
·
The New Pelican Guide to English Literature
6, From Dickens to Hardy. Edited by Boris Ford.
·
English
Poetry 1918-60,
edited by Kenneth Allot. The Penguin Poets.
·
Blackwell
Guides to Criticism. The Victorian Novel edited by Francis O’Gorman.
·
The
Victorians. Penguin
History of Literature 6. Edited by Arthur Pollard.
·
Victorianweb. Org
·
Charon.sfu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML
·
www.oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/english/canary/poets19.html
·
es.Encarta.msn.com