Introduction
When Scott announced a book review
Contest, I wondered what to do.
I pondered for a month or two,
I wanted to try something new,
But couldn't think of what.
At first I dismissed poetry,
But with this one I have history,
Well-known romantic tragedy:
The Lady of Shalott.
About the poem
Composed in 1832,
Then ten years on rewritten anew,
I chose the second to review[49]
(The version I already knew)
With a verse count of nineteen.
And as for lines, it's nine per verse
Of iambic tetrameter.
Not couplets; Tennyson preferred
This complex rhyming scheme.
The author is Lord Tennyson
Who tells a tale Arthurian:
A mysterious lady lives alone
Within sight of King Arthur's throne
On the island of Shalott.
And there she weaves a tapestry
Made up of images she sees
In her mirror, various scenes
Of the road to Camelot.
The mirror, of course, reflects the view
From the window in the room.
But she must never leave her loom
Or turn to look directly through
Down to Camelot.
The lady does not know her fate,
She only knows her doom awaits
So, watching shadows, still she stays
Alone upon Shalott.
Until one day it goes awry,
A dashing knight comes riding by.
The pale reflection won't suffice;
She turns to see with her own eyes
The bold Sir Lancelot.
The curse has come, her life is o'er,
She leaves her lonely island bower
And floats downriver to the shore
Of the court at Camelot.
The story had been told before,
It's part of the Arthurian lore.
Mort Artu a likely source;
And Malory wrote her too, of course
- Elaine of Astolat.
And Tennyson's inspiration
A novellina - Italian -
A very short story with the name
La Damigella di Scalot.
The common end of all of these
The tragic death of the lady
From loving unrequitedly,
Her body borne towards the sea
Run aground at Camelot.
Then to the basics of the tale,
Lord Tennyson adds his own detail -
The curse, the mirror, and the veil
For his Lady of Shalott.
Themes
And so this leads me on to themes,
Of courtly love, romantic dreams.
A common reading is to see
Victorian femininity,
Chaste innocence in death.
But other scholars make the point
The Lady gets to make her choice,
And in her death she finds her voice;
A form of empowerment.
But as for me, when reading round,
The interesting point, I found
To be the absence of background
In contrast to the other accounts -
The Lady stands alone.
I mean, Elaine has history
In the account by Malory.
She's grounded in reality,
She has family and home.
Tennyson's Lady lacks all that.
She has no family, name, or past,
Her tale's distilled to the central act,
Her one decision, its impact,
The inevitable lament.
And Lancelot is not to blame
For riding by her windowpane.
He has no active role to play,
Just final acknowledgement.
So I think Tennyson's purpose here
To emphasise the great ideal.
Romantic, courtly love so pure -
No interaction needed here -
Just one look from above.
The curse, the mirror, the tapestry,
The elements of fantasy,
Are there to corral the doomed lady
To the heights of courtly love.
Cultural impact
As for culture, it belongs
Within the great Arthurian throng
Born of the Mabinogion[50],
A fandom that goes on and on,
Entranced by Camelot.
In fact the poem's main borrowing
From the Arthurian setting -
The courtly lover man supreme,
Bold Sir Lancelot.
At the time, the artists flocked
To paint the Lady of Shalott.
At her weaving, in her boat,
Gazed upon by Lancelot,
Ensnared in threads of fate.
Though Tennyson made quite a fuss
About the scenes which were made up
(which frankly is ridiculous.
Pots and kettles, mate!)[51].
And since then the poem's shaped
Many more artistic takes,
Inspired by the lonely maid
And by her doomed romantic fate;
Books, music and TV.
From title quotes to entire plot,
The poem has supplied the lot,
Cultural imagination caught
By Shalott's mystery.
And it has resonance today
If in an unexpected way.
Not for the romantic fate,
But for the Lady's lonely wait -
Which now we all have known.
We too have huddled in our towers,
And watched the world through glass for hours,
Half-sick of shadows in the sour
Isolation of our homes.
Conclusions
Turning to my own history,
Way back when I was just fourteen
My English teacher, Miss McGee[52],
Had made a bet with Upper Three
To learn the thing by rote.
A fiver was a lot back then;
I memorised it all, but when
I told her, she refused my claim -
Wouldn't pay a jot.
To be scrupulously fair,
I was in another year,
But she taught us too. I fear
I sulked in every class of hers
And wouldn't let it drop.
And this went on for weeks until
She gave in and paid the bill.
And I have a soft spot still
For the Lady of Shalott.
So in conclusion, please do
Read Tennyson's poem too.
It's one verse more than this review
And the rhymes work better too
(He was Poet Laureate!).
My mind is now embalmed in rhyme,
I think in meter all the time,
So here I'll draw my final line
'neath the Lady of Shalott.