i am half sick of shadows
letter 9: a dive into "The Lady of Shallot"" by Tennyson
if I must confess, I am not a person who can get into poems easily. I have a hard time fully consuming them and it usually results with me being apart from this lyrical world. however, The Lady of Shallot is very dear to me. i want to get every line tatted to my body if that is not an exaggeration to say.
I read Lady of Shallot a couple of weeks ago. I wondered around the lines for days. I’ve read analysis of both the poem and the series of paintings by John William (1849 – 1917) on YouTube. In short I learned everything I can about this magical piece and I am here to share what I learned with you.
On either side the river lie
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;
The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly
Tremble in the water chilly
Round about Shalott.
the first stanza of the Part I is explaining the place named ‘Shallot’ which is described as a place where lilies grow, an island in the Rivera it is near to Camelot, as it shows. the four opening lines describing the surroundings are very vague. thus we don’t know where this place is located, what period of time is it and so on. but the fifth line mentions Camelot. King Arthur’s Camelot. the place in the TV show Merlin (2008) if I may. ( :) )
Camelot is a legendary castle and court, as the internet says. as we know now Camelot is an imaginary place and historians still don’t know the exact location of it altough they are close.
because of this we can travel to 1800’s with this tale.
The yellow-leaved waterlily
as is described later in the poem the square, gray tower where Lady of Shallot is sheltered is covered with lilies. showing the pureness of her.
the second stanza continues to describe the surroundings. talking about autumn nature. then proceeds to tell about the square, gray tower that shelters Lady of Shallot as I shared above.
it tells about the people going on with their lives on their boats and horses without none of them noticing The Lady;
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?
this explains how unnoticed she is. how unknown. only the harvest man coming in early morning hears her singing and thinks ‘there is the enchanted lady of shallot’
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 he is cursed by a whisper she hears. if she dares to look at Camelot directly, the curse will be upon her so she watches the outside world’s reflection while doing her art, tapestry. she gets immense joy through her art but can’t help to feeling trapped. she only sees the world through her artistic vision. she loves the images on the blue mirror but gets tired of the shadows after seeing young women cheerful as birds and young boys in their training suits as it portrays in the line:
"I am half sick of shadows,"
said The Lady of Shalott
while we are at it I want to talk about what a metephor this poem is. the curse upon her, only seeing the real world through a reflection and making gorgeous things is describing how a creative person should be. ‘The solitary nature of a creative person.’ this suggests the artist must be isolated and distanced from the world to make good art.
With saying this let me get to the part of the broken mirror because there will always be a broken mirror, a heart but most importantly a soul in tragedies.
the opening four stanzas in part iii is describing a Sir Lancelot. A man with curly black hair, a shield portraying a man kneeling in front of a lady.
(in part ii there is this line explaining The Lady has no knights to love and be faithful to her.
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
when I read the line describing Sir Lancelot’s shield I immediately remembered this line. a man kneeling in front of a woman. a knight. the signs of faithfulness, love… she realizes that maybe there are some knights who she can love and can be faithful to her. a new chance.)
the lines continues to describe Sir Lancelot’s glory: his horse, hair, shield, suit… there is even a line explaining how charming he is;
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
the lines describes him as a meteor sliding through the dark night of Shallot. after all of this we can clearly tell how affected The Lady of Shallot is. she leaves her weaving, her art, and wonders around the room.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room
she ,then, looks through her window, seeing the lilies and how his helmet shone. this act resulted in a crack in the mirror as it displays in this part;
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
After the curse going upon The Lady, her artistry becomes destroyed following with lines showing how bad of an autumn weather is present.
she leaves the tower. down to the river she goes. she finds an abondend boat and writes her name on it. The Lady of Shallot. even though her artistry is completely destroyed we can see that she still carries parts of it by writing beautifully on the boat and placing herself like an art work.
she sings as she dies.
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 round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.
she floated to Camelot. people coming to see who this woman is. men made Cross signs in fear, Sir Lancelot looked at her;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
      The Lady of Shalott."
Lady of Shallot’s art is her tragedy, her curse. she can create wonderful images but can’t get in touch with it. as to LitCharts’ review this represents the anxiety Tennyson had for the world. considering this piece is a major metaphor explaining an artist should be isolated and closed to the real world this is understandable.
thank you so much for reading. I got help from various websites while writing this and harmonized it with my own thoughts. i’m going to link down all of the media I consumed while writing this.
I highly recommend reading the original poem after this long-form post. I think it would be a much better experience.
one last thing I want to add is down below is a video attached about Lady of Shallot. I highly suggest that you watch it. again, thank you for reading. I hope you liked it as much as I loved writing about this.
you can read the poem here!!!
the video I mentioned by Loreena McKennitt
the paintings by John William, explained here!!!
the heavy inspiration of this piece: analysis
The paintings in order;
ps: this is the order according to the poem.
I'm loving this dissection
Thanks for sharing…appreciate your honest insights and although this is the first time I read this poem I want to ask about the curse!…but I’ll ask after I read it again…