Poem Analysis: Lady of Shalott
Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one published in 1833, of twenty stanzas, the other in 1842 of nineteen stanzas. It was loosely based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat, as recounted in a thirteenth-century Italian novella titled Donna di Scalotta (No. LXXXII in the collection Cento Novelle Antiche), with the earlier version being closer to the source material than the later.[1] Tennyson focused on the Lady's "isolation in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two subjects noAccording to scholar Anne Zanzucchi, "[i]n a more general sense, it is fair to say that the pre-Raphaelite fascination with Arthuriana is traceable to Tennyson's work".[2]Tennyson's biographer Leonée Ormonde finds the Arthurian material is "Introduced as a valid setting for the study of the artist and the dangers of personal isolation".
Modern critics[citation needed] consider "The Lady of Shalott" to be representative of the dilemma that faces artists, writers, andmusicians: to create work about and celebrate the world, or to enjoy the world by simply living in it. Feminist critics[citation needed] see the poem as concerned with issues of women's sexuality and their place in the Victorian world. The fact that the poem works through such complex and polyvalent symbolism indicates an important difference between Tennyson's work and his Arthurian source material.[original research?] While Tennyson's sources tended to work through allegory, Tennyson himself did not.
Critics such as Hatfield[citation needed] have suggested that The Lady of Shalott is a representation of how Tennyson viewed society; the distance at which other people are in the lady's eyes is symbolic of the distance he feels from society. The fact that she only sees them through a window pane is significant of the way in which Shalott and Tennyson see the world—in a filtered sense. This distance is therefore linked to the artistic licence Tennyson often wrote about. Part I: The poem
Modern critics[citation needed] consider "The Lady of Shalott" to be representative of the dilemma that faces artists, writers, andmusicians: to create work about and celebrate the world, or to enjoy the world by simply living in it. Feminist critics[citation needed] see the poem as concerned with issues of women's sexuality and their place in the Victorian world. The fact that the poem works through such complex and polyvalent symbolism indicates an important difference between Tennyson's work and his Arthurian source material.[original research?] While Tennyson's sources tended to work through allegory, Tennyson himself did not.
Critics such as Hatfield[citation needed] have suggested that The Lady of Shalott is a representation of how Tennyson viewed society; the distance at which other people are in the lady's eyes is symbolic of the distance he feels from society. The fact that she only sees them through a window pane is significant of the way in which Shalott and Tennyson see the world—in a filtered sense. This distance is therefore linked to the artistic licence Tennyson often wrote about. Part I: The poem