Essay, Research Paper: Tennyson's Lady Of Shallot

Alfred Lord Tennyson is one of the most well known writers of
the Victorian period. Critics of Tennyson's works have
ascertained that everything he has written has a basis of several
characteristics. These characteristics being: a recurrent motif
of individual isolation and the use of voyage or odyssey,
dramatic monologue, an effort of equilibrium between the public
and private obligations of the poet, experimen-
tation with form, the resolution of a war between the ancients
and moderns through the use of fables, and a dedication to the
principle that sound is the main vehicle of the senses.
Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shallot" shows prime examples
of each of these characteristics.
Tennyson's Lady shows us the full characterization of
being imprisoned. She is imprisoned on her isle, "Four grey
walls, and four grey towers, Overlook a space of flowers, And
the silent isle embowers The Lady of Shallot."(Anderson, Ln.
15-17).
The key behind the Ladies imprisonment lies in the fact
that she will be cursed if she looks down on Camelot and tries to
take part in real life. "She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on
her if she stay, To look down to Camelot" (Anderson, ln. 40-42).
In Elizabeth Lee's essay, she states that "She (the Lady of Shallot)
is cursed under the pain of death never to participate in the
actual lives she sees" (Lee, 1).
The only way that the lady of Shallot can take part in real
life is by watching things transpire below her through a magic
mirror that she uses to weave. "And moving through a mirror
clear, That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world
appear" (Anderson, ln. 46-48).
The lady of Shallot is growing tired of being alone and only
viewing shadows of the world. She can sit at her loom and
watch all the world pass by her, but can never take part in what
she sees.
"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,
Come two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shallot."(Anderson, 64-71).
This point is a pivotal part of the story. The lady is growing tired
of her surroundings and her embowerment. It is at this point in
the story that we know that it would take very little for her to risk
the curse and leave the loom.
It is then that the lady sees Lancelot in her mirror, and it is
Lancelot who causes her to leave the loom and bring the curse
upon herself. "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 looked down to Camelot"
(Anderson, ln. 108-112).
This is when the use of voyage and odyssey comes into
play. The lady leaves her tower and makes her way down to the
river where she finds a boat. "Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat, And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shallot." (Anderson, ln. 123-125). According to
popular criticism this action is symbolic of an artist leaving their
work to take part in life outside of their creativity.
The lady of Shallot floats in the boat all the way to
Camelot. She knows that she is dying while she travels on the
river. And before she even reaches Camelot she is dead. "For
ere she reached upon the tide The first house by the waterside,
Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shallot." (Anderson, ln.
150-152). In the viewpoint of one critic, "The Lady of Shallot
illustrates the spirit of the artist, one that distances itself from
humanity and creates images from life's reflections. When the
artist tries to gain acceptance in the public life, she dies and her
work is never seen" (Lee, 1).
The next basic characterization of Tennyson's poetry that
can be found in "The Lady of Shallot" is that of the dramatic
monologue. The first dramatic statement of the poem is made
by the lady herself. She says, "I am half sick of shadows"
(Anderson, ln. 71). This is the beginning of the end for the lady of
Shallot. All it takes at this point is just a little push to convince
her to leave the island. This comes in a song that she hears
Lancelot singing, "Tirra Lirra by the river sang Sir Lancelot"
(Anderson, ln. 108). For the lady, Lancelot equals temptation, a
temptation that she can not conquer.
Perhaps the most important instance of dramatic
monologue comes at the end of the poem. After the lady has left
the loom and died on her voyage to Camelot, Lancelot has a
chance to see her. "But Lancelot mused a little space; He said
"She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The
Lady of Shallot"" (Anderson, ln. 168-170). Lancelot never knows
that she did what she did because of him, but he still feels
compassion for this woman whom he never had a chance to
know.
Then we must face the public and private obligations of the
poet.
The exact meaning of the allegory
in this poem is uncertain, but it is
generally held that the lady is a
poet or artist, the castle an ivory
tower, the tapestry and mirror met-
aphors for the creative imagination.
(Anderson, footnote)
The public obligation of the poet or artist is to maintain the
quality of his/her work and to give to the people what they want
and need. But privately all artists dream of being on the other
side of the pen. It's like being outside of a window and staring in,
only in "The Lady of Shallot" she is trapped within and unable to
get out except through the images she sees in her mirror. When
the artist does attempt to rejoin reality she dies. An artist without
their work is nothing according to the masses. They are no
longer fulfilling their public obligations to the people. According
to one critic:
The tension between Tennyson estab-
lishes between the interior and the
exterior world, between the natural,
material world and the shadow of that
world reflected by the lady's magic
mirror, gives expression to the Vic-
torian preoccupation with the contrast
between the exterior and the interior
worlds. (Nelson, 2)
Another critic also tried to voice what he believed to be
Tennyson's feelings about the public and private obligations of
the poet, what he voiced in "The Lady of Shallot".
In Tennyson the Victorian poet's
sense of a division between the needs
of self and of society appears in his
quest to find a public use, for the kind
of poetry that gave him pleasure and,
second, for intensely personal exper-
iences, including his reactions to the
death of his best friend Hallam.
(Landow, 1)
Also, Tennyson tried to use "The Lady of Shallot" as an ancient
fable by which he could resolve a modern war; the war of the
plight of the artist. "In "The Lady of Shallot" Tennyson makes an
Arthurian figure of his own invention serve as a symbol for the
artist" (Landow, 1). And also, "This mythic poem embodies the
way ordinary human needs destroy the artist" (Landow,1).
And with that we see that Tennyson has managed to
include four of the basic six characteristics that people
associate with his works into "The Lady of Shallot." And by the
breaking down of his work into these smaller sections we can
see the over-all plight of the artist in a society where people feel
their needs should be met even at the expense of the artists.