The Lady of Shallot
By Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson
Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson
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1809-1892
Prominent Victorian Era Poet
Published his first work of poetry in 1830
“The Lady of Shallot” appeared in 1842 in the
two-volume Poems which established his
reputation as a writer.
• His most well-known works include “In
Memoriam,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,”
“Idylls of the King,” and “Maud.”
• He was made a baron in 1884
The Lady of Shallot
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On either side the river lie
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Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And 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.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
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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,
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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,
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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
Lady of Shalott."
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
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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,
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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
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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.
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
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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,
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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
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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,
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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.
In the stormy east-wind straining,
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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."
Who is the Lady of Shallot
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The Lady of Shalott is a magical being who lives alone on an island
upstream from King Arthur's Camelot. Her business is to look at the
world outside her castle window in a mirror, and to weave what she
sees into a tapestry. She is forbidden by the magic to look at the
outside world directly. The farmers who live near her island hear her
singing and know who she is, but never see her.
The Lady sees ordinary people, loving couples, and knights in pairs
reflected in her mirror. One day, she sees the reflection of Sir Lancelot
riding alone. Although she knows that it is forbidden, she looks out
the window at him. The mirror shatters, the tapestry flies off on the
wind, and the Lady feels the power of her curse.
An autumn storm suddenly arises. The lady leaves her castle, finds a
boat, writes her name on it, gets into the boat, sets it adrift, and sings
her death song as she drifts down the river to Camelot. The locals find
the boat and the body, realize who she is, and are saddened. Lancelot
prays that God will have mercy on her soul.
(http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm)
Why did he write it?
• Tennyson likes to write poems about creatures lost in half-life,
and/or people taking decisive, heroic action that leads to their
doom; the lady of Shallot is all of these things, and she is also
related to the heroic legend of King Arthur and Camelot.
• In the poem, the lady finally looks out the window because of
loneliness and romantic yearnings; Tennyson wrote this poem
in his early 20’s and it reflects that he wondered whether he
could abstain from love in his life, which was what was
expected of a poet in the Victorian Era. Tennyson did not end
up marrying until nearly 20 years later.
• This poem also reflects Tennyson’s ideas of himself as a
repressed individual in order to be an artist, and he shows this
in the isolated condition the lady finds herself in in the poem.
She can only weave the tapestry as long as she never looks out
into the real world; similarly, Tennyson is expressing that he
cannot write if he is experiencing the real world.
Modern Connections
• All of the paintings used as backgrounds in this
slideshow are actual depictions of the poem.
Agatha Christie wrote a Miss Marple mystery
entitled "The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side",
which was based on the poem and was later
made into a movie starring Angela Lansbury.
Tirra Lirra by the River, by Australian novelist
Jessica Anderson, is the story of a modern
woman's decision to break out of confinement, is
also an adaptation of the poem. Loreena
McKinnet has put the song to music.
• Click Here to view a video rendition of Loreena
McKennit’s song version of Tennyson’s poem
Cultural Connections
• The Lady of Shallot is based upon the Arthurian Legend
of Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. The
tower the lady is confined to in the poem is North of
Camelot, and the Knight whom she sees that finally
makes her leave her confined life in the tower is
Lancelot.
• The Legend of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round
Table, and Camelot are remembered centuries later and
they still inspire in us images of nobility, heroes, and epic
quests and adventures. The story of King Arthur, Sir
Lancelot, and Lady Guinevere is remembered as
perhaps the greatest tale of romance and tragedy in all
of European Literature.
• Hawaiian Culture is riddled with legends and myths that
helped to shape the literature of Hawaii and the
Hawaiian people. Because of this, I have chosen to
make a connection between Tennyson’s poem and a
Hawaiian Legend.
Cultural Connections, Cont
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The Legend of
Kamapua’a and Pele
Kamapua’a was born to the Hawaiian Goddess Hina,
but she was a young woman and her husband was an
aged old man who did not believe that the child was
his. As such, he refused to acknowledge his son, and
so Kamapua’a grew into a bitter young man, unloved
by all around him. He banded together with other
young men and together they wreaked havock, until
eventually Kamapua’a killed his own father. He sought
out his mother, now married to the man his father
suspected her of being unfaithful with, but he was
denied there as well. From that point on, he forswore
any feeling of compassion and lived in the shapeshifted form of a wild hog, or in the form of a human
only to seduce women. One day. He encountered a
woman so beautiful, it cracked the shell around his
heart and so he begged Pele to be his wife. Appalled
by his appearance, she refused him and so he swore
that if she would not take him willingly, he would take
her forcefully. Both were demigods, and so he
threatened her with water, and she in return threatened
him with fire. In the end, she gave in and they came
together, but when he opened up his heart to her, the
change in him scared her and so she ran away, giving
him a part of the Hawaii Island to cover in the wet
lushness that water brings about, while she would
cover the other half of the island in the dry fire born of
lava. Then Pele ran away and covered her exit in lava
so that Kamapua’a could not follow, and the two have
never been together since, though both have pined for
the other.
(http://www.coffeetimes.com/kamapuaa.htm)
Cultural Connections, Cont
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Though this legend does not have
many similarities to the story outlined
in the poem “The Lady of Shallot,”
both stories are based in legends that
have influenced the literature and
stories that came after them: King
Arthur is a known figure, as are the
other characters in his that legend,
and any reference of them in later
literature is hardly ever expanded
upon; similarly, Pele and Kamapua’a
are central figures in Hawaiian myths
and any story based in Hawaii that
contains either of these figures will
hardly need any explanation to
introduce them
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Another reason the Hawaiian Legend
and the poem connect is because of
the loneliness present in both of these
tales. The Hawaiian Legend of Pele
and Kamapua’a shows how lonely and
isolated Kamapua’a felt because of the
stigma of his birth. The Lady of
Shallot was also cursed in birth, but by
magic instead of by status. Both of
these individuals are isolated from
other people, and these isolation
shaped their entire lives until they each
find something that forces them to
forsake their imprisonment of
loneliness: for the Lady of Shallot, that
“something” is Sir lancelot riding by her
tower; for Kamapua’a, the “something”
is falling in love with Pele. Both figures
have unahppy endings: Kamapua’a
loses his love and pines for her forever
after; the Lady of Shallot dies trying to
escape her imprisonment.
Websites Used
• http://www.coffeetimes.com/kamapuaa.htm
• http://www.coffeetimes.com/kamapuaa.htm
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMazwBCa9
yU&feature=related
• faeriefae.50megs.com/lady_of_shalott.htm
• http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/shalott.htm
• http://www.angelfire.com/me2/camelot/shalottAr
t6.html