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The Book Club Online is the oldest book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone. We offer cordial discussions of one book a month, 24/7 and enjoy the company of readers from all over the world. Everyone is welcome.
February Book Club Online:
The Lady of Shalott
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892 )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Ladywaterhousehalfsickofshadows.jpg)
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, “I am half-sick of shadows” (1916)
We've all heard of it, but what's it about, again? People have been enjoying arguing over the message for 150 years. When's the last time you read it?
Why not join us February 9? Read it in 5 minutes, talk about it the rest of your life. What does a 150 year old poem by Tennyson have to say to us in 2015? Come tell us your thoughts about the many issues it raises: a woman who looks at life literally second hand, not only through a window but through a mirror as well, not daring to take part. What does that mean or say to us? Is the Internet in some ways a mirror freeing us from the closeness of face to face interaction?
We'll have a great time with this one! Do join us and share your thoughts starting February 9.
DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:
February 9-28
Interesting Links: :
~ Enjoy this haunting rendition of the poem in ballad form by Loreen McKenna with many beautiful illustrations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0rVNQw1DQM)
~A comparison of editions: 1833 and 1842 by The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/shalcomb.htm)
~ Elaine of Astolat links (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/elanmenu.htm)
Elaine of Astolat is the maiden who dies of unrequited love for Lancelot and floats in a barge to Camelot with a letter for Lancelot clutched in her lifeless hand. She appears in Malory and in Tennyson's idyll of "Lancelot and Elaine." The figure of Elaine in the barge became one of the most popular Victorian images.
~ SC Edu Library Online Text (http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/tenn/shalott.html)
~ A wonderful page on the Lady by a pathologist with a very clever way of comparing the editions. (http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm)
Discussion Leader: ginny (gvinesc@gmail.com )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Beyondbattlemet.jpg)
And there are knights in shining armor, too!! How up ARE you on your knights and armor? Take This delightful quiz from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/interactives/adults-teachers/beyond-battle) and enjoy finding out!
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Happy New Year and welcome, welcome, to something old to go with the new year: Tennyson! What could be better for a discussion than a short old poem that nobody agrees on? What could it possibly have to say to US in 2015?
Let's find out. Please join us February 9 and let's talk about the issues the poem raises today. We have tons of historic gorgeous art to share and loads of side issues to chew on, and with the backgrounds of our astute readers here, we'll have a feast, for sure.
We'll each have our own take on the story and what's happening. Why Camelot, for instance? I am very interested, personally, in her choice (or was it, and if not why not?) to look at the world outside not only thru a window but through the reflection in a mirror, and what a modern parallel might be. Do you know anybody like that?
This is going to be one for the books!
Please let us know if you're in so we can put it officially on the schedule! Nothing to buy, no right or wrong answers, read it if you like when you like, just come armed with your ideas or your questions on the 9th and let's see what happens.
Everyone is welcome!
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Oh this is great. The Lady of Shalott has been in the back of my mind and pops back up now and again. It's one of those things that I get reminded of and then promptly forget for some reason. I remember seeing part an an old movie with Katharine Hepburn called The Madwoman of Chaillot. It seems I confused that with the poem. Was the poem an inspiration for that film I wonder? I'll find out in February because I will be here.
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Sounds like an interesting discussion.
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Nlhome!!! So glad to see you! Oh I think so, there's so much here and I know our astute readers will make it one. I'm hoping it will be like our former The Yellow Wallpaper, that was sooo much fun!
And here you are, the first one on the first day of the year! How much better can you get?
Welcome! I hope you will join us!
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I watched/listened to the ballad while sipping my coffee. Now I'll have to read it more carefully.
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Isn't that a pretty thing?
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I'm in--wouldn'miss it.
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I remember reading the poem in high school and being chastised by a teacher for reading ahead of the assigned schedule. What a joy to read and discuss it with friends, knowing that you won't be tested on whether you "got it" or not.
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What a lovely piece to read again...I'll be there!
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Oh WOW!! What an exciting thing to look in here and see so many assembling! A new year's gift! This is so fun! I must admit I am quite excited about it. It's been a long time since I did a book discussion here and I'm half scared to death and half running off on tangents.
Frybabe!! I am so sorry, I somehow missed your post!! You said, " I remember seeing part an an old movie with Katharine Hepburn called The Madwoman of Chaillot. It seems I confused that with the poem."
Oooo another element already enters the mix!! I just read the plot of that one...golly....I wonder if there is any connection, however obscure? I mean, the theme? Surely that can't be a coincidence. Don't forget about it? We may need to talk about it! Welcome!
No fear of chastisement here, Joan K!!! Welcome, so glad to see you here! We'll need all our smart hands on deck to help us with this one. hahahaa won't this be fun?
Oh and Pat H!! How marvelous, well we can't lose now, and we're in no difficulty of missing anything. I am becoming obsessed with the Camelot/ myth/ legend thing for some reason.
Venia! Welcome, welcome! We are so glad to see you here. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it. It is lovely. I'm really loving this entire experience, so far, and so excited to see so many people here to share it with!
(Have any of you tried the arms and armor quiz? It's really fun!)
Welcome, All!!
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And to be a tiny little poem there's an awful lot to this thing. The two versions alone by the same author are quite different.... this is really going to be fun.
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Count me in. I don't think I've read the entire poem since high school & yet parts of it still stick with me. Looking forward to reading it again & discussing it.
Sally
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OK
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Sally! (Salan) Welcome, welcome! So glad to see you here. Reading your post made me reflect on What We Read in High School. That alone would make a fabulous discussion. Should, in fact, our youth be exposed to wonderful glorious prose?
Or is it wasted on the young? I am positive Caesar is, just a total waste, and worse, they hate it.
Sally! (Kidsal) you folks in Wyoming are of few words! hahahaa Reminds me of John Wayne. I hope that means you will join us? (What is your opinion of Caesar for the high school student?)
So now we have, among our wonderful participants, two sets of pairs: The Two Sallys, and the Dynamic Duo Twins, PatH and Joan K! It will be double the fun!
Everyone is welcome, even if they don't like Caesar...well, maybe we can change their minds. :)
Salan is so right about parts of it sticking with you. Stuck with Agatha Christie who called one of her books The Mirror Cracked... hard not to comment, isn't it?
For memorable lines, Tennyson is the best. Think of Judy Dench in Skyfall, that marvelous quote.
Welcome, All!
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If it's Camelot, you must count me in! I have read this awhile back, and found it very confusing, and intriguing. I can't say much of it stayed with be then, but then I wasn't really looking for it to, since I came across by accident, it while searching for more of Tennyson's works.
When I think of Camelot, I immediately think of the Kennedy family. John F. & Jackie, they did make Camelot all come alive once again, if only for a little while. Then of course John Jr., and his beautiful bride of such a short time, Carolyn Bessette. She seemed so regal, and he so dashing, you could easily mistake them for a Lord and Lady. I suppose you will have to label me as the hopeless romantic of the discussion Ginny. Feb 9th, just in time for Valentine's Day, the day for lovers to express their undying love for each other.
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Welcome, welcome, Bellamarie!~ So glad to have you. Good point!
Camelot. What images that brings up! Romance, knights in armor, castles, chivalry...Is the original Camelot, Arthur, Lancelot, etc., a myth or legend, or perhaps a folk tale? Or do people think it is true? I must look over the definitions again, because it makes a difference. I hope some of you who are interested in the Arthur and Camelot story will help us by doing some research (please not on Wiki anything) and enlighten us as to what Arthur is now considered. I remember standing at what is thought to be the " original round table" (it was big and it was round and in a huge barn like meeting hall), and going to Tintagel, and being told it was all a myth, that he did not exist. This was by the people in charge of the sites. And if it is a myth, what did it represent to last so long? To last long enough to be applied to a U.S. president? Why was it told and why is it in this story? What does it symbolize? I have, as always, millions of questions and NO answers.
Of course I'm still trying to get over laughing at Dan Stevens, formerly of Downton Abbey in his role as Lancelot in the movie Night at the Museum 3. Man is a HOOT.
But I like your romantic view of Camelot, and it seems that The Lady of Shalott seemed to share it. Or possibly not? What fun this will be! I hope we all can take a different point of interest on this one, in that way we can figure out what we think it says, anyway. There's plenty of room for Camelot/ Arthur scholars/ enthusiasts, and Tennyson scholars and we need you ALL!
Welcome!
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Oh my, Ginny, you've thrown down the gauntlet. You know I can't resist researching stuff.
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Way back in the very early 1970's, while living in California when my husband was in the Navy (and we had no money, but that is another story), I read Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave, the first of her Arthurian books. I remember really enjoying that book, and I think I read the other two in the trilogy. While I don't remember much about the books themselves, what I do remember is telling one of my husband's sailor buddies about how great it was but that I didn't think he would like it. He came back a week later and flicked me on the arm lightly and said "That's for saying I wouldn't like The Crystal Cave." Truth, fiction or a bit of both, it's a fascinating legend.
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I've started looking into the legend. It is just as tangled now as it was when I was young. One of the he latest findings involve structural features. One involves a feature called the King's Knot on the grounds of Stirling Castle. The description of which leads me to believe that it was an old garden (perhaps fountain?) feature what with the old drainage channels mentioned. The other is that the Roman Amphitheater in Chester may have been used as Arthur's "roundtable".
I found a reference that said that the term 'Welsh' is a corruption of a Saxon word, 'weala', meaning 'foreigners'. And referred peoples covering a much larger area than the current country of Wales.
Where-ever King Arthur was born, he certainly got around and everyone seems to want him for their own. In one of the newest books out, author and amateur historian Adam Ardrey (one of those who believes King Arthur was a Scot) believes that he died at battle of Camlann, near Falkirk, and was buried on Iona. The books (yes, he wrote one about the real Merlin too) look interesting. http://finding-merlin.com/
Dr. Caitlin R. Green, has also written fairly recently about the Arthurian legend. She is an historian and author who specializes in late Roman and early medieval Britain. http://www.caitlingreen.org/
I suppose I must actually read the poem to zero in on what is pertinent to it.
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Frybabe, super, I am glad you are IN!~! Lovely research, and you make a good point too, the History Channel, while labeling Arthur a myth and a legend, does point out that there is no way humanly possible that he could have been everywhere his legend depicts him as being. When we start we can bring that here, too. Thank you for that link, too. I'll put it in the heading once we get started.
Nlhome, hhahaa Yes, those are wonderful books! And Ivanhoe of course, who could forget Ivanhoe.
The deal is, it's the concept that the legend or myth perpetuates, the attempt of a people who are "pre literate," that is, not everybody is reading about this man when he lived, to convey their own culture, their own validation of social institutions, their own explanations for what matters to them... since we have no living representative of that time to ask.
We have our own myths. it's like saying to an American " George Washington." That brings up a million images, and he was a real man. However if you say George Washington and the tree, everybody knows which tree and if you say George Washington threw a coin across..... then everybody knows what river and what happened, or they think they know, those two bits are apparently apocryphal, and so with Arthur and the sword in the stone and Camelot, and the round table, who is to say that some of that is not right? Who is to say which is false? Legends grow with time, and the telling, too.
And Frybabe is right, it's confused. And that's one thing I like about the Lady of Shalott, her poem is, too, it's confused. It's almost a fog. I LOVE what he's done with it because it gives US the delight of trying to unravel it...just like her loom.....We will enjoy this one! ( I already enjoy it). :)
Everyone is welcome to join!
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Will we do 1832 and 1842 poems? This is new. I want to learn more.
http://www.kingarthursknights.com/etc/pictures.asp
Frybabe
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phq_lW4-Q2E
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www.fanpop.com/clubs/anjs-angels/images/33378986/title/camelot
click castle picture
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Welcome, Bluebird! Yes I think we will need to include both versions. I like the way some websites post them parallel to each other, it makes it clear what the differences are. That's a good point: we will enjoy seeing the difference.
And of course we'll want to learn why there are two versions, good points!
I am not able to get anything in the Camelot link?
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Thanks for the links, Bluebird.
Years and years ago, we went through Stirling on a tour trip up to Loch Katrine. I remember Stirling, Callander and the boat trip on the lake, but that is about it. I do not remember any references to Sir Walter Scott or The Lady of the Lake. Loch Katrine: http://www.visitscotland.com/info/towns-villages/loch-katrine-p662921
Unfortunately, we did not get to tour the castle at Stirling, only seeing it from the town. I am a bit surprised that the King's Knot feature is so far from the castle and on the plain, not up on the ridge with the castle.
While looking into Loch Katrine, I ran across these nteresting, and totally unrelated to our poem, articles about Gregor MacGregor, master con artist http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21568583-biggest-fraud-history-warning-professional-and-amateur-investors and Rob Roy. http://www.incallander.co.uk/rob_roy.htm
Does anyone know if Shalott represents a real place? Or did Tennyson just come up with something to rhyme for his poem?
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http://www.thisisnorthcornwall.co.uk/king_arthur.html
pictures
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http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/33300000/Camelot-Castle-anjs-angels-33378986-1248-704.jpg
Ginny,try this page.
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Thank you for those links, Bluebird. The first one of Tintagel is very pretty.
Frybabe, I have no idea, I hope to discover that, too, when we begin. What interesting things you unearth!
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http://landoflegendslv.com/01library/01archives/03maps/Maps.html
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What fun, Bluebird. I like maps. And, look there is Tenby. I've been there visiting relatives. If I remember correctly there was a little island you could walk over to at low tide, St. Catherine's Island. I don't remember a fort on it. I see from a history that they closed the island in the 70's, and that recently some developer wanted to open it up again and put in a suspension walkway. I do not remember the lovely harbor or the colorful houses. I do remember my relative's house; look out the back window and there was a huge open dump. That is also where I became acquainted with a huge cat (and it wasn't just fat) who quite literally knocked me onto my back while I was sitting on the floor.
Some nice pix on Tripadvisor:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g191253-Tenby_Pembrokeshire_Wales-Vacations.html#photos
Click on the big pic and it will bring up a slideshow.
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Oh how lovely. Thank you Bluebird for those gorgeous maps. Just really what we think of when we think Camelot...Beautiful.
Frybabe, what a lovely link! Thank you for that, too.
There's a wonderful article in the History Magazine put out by the BBC for last month on Geoffrey of Monmouth who, in the 1100's recounted in his History of the Kings of Britain all these legends and lore. They say he invented Arthur and that his contemporaries didn't believe a word he wrote. But hark!! NOW they are saying that a lot of what he wrote must have been true after all...giants monsters and all, it was all part of the oral history of the times. It's absolutely fascinating. There's a lovely Penguin book out on him and I've got it and I am going to thoroughly enjoy my dip into the water of this fabulous time.
I remember reading Ivanhoe and almost never got over it. I haven't looked at it in years, what wonderful magic these stories hold! And of course who has not seen Camelot in some form? I have seen...believe it or not, Rock Hudson in summer theater in Camelot and Richard Burton in his last performance in Lincoln Center too.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here In Camelot.
I have to say that the idea of Camelot is certainly more appealing than the current news!
Join us February 9!
Everybody is welcome!
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GINNY, ditto, anything is better than the news. I'll be following along, may not have anything to say, but this is a unique offering here in the books; should be a grand discussion.
My maiden name is Welsh - EVANS - and years ago we had a 90-year-old aunt who flew from California to visit relatives she had never met and she knew all those people who immigrated from Wales. If I looked hard enough for the book perhaps among all my stored junk I could find the book she wrote about them - it had a blue hardcover on it.
I can't write it here but we had such a laugh when she told us the difference between a man and a woman in Wales. But I can say she stated that in Wales you either were a preacher or a farmer. Best to be a preacher because the farmers see to all your needs.
Loved that castle, wouldn't want to live there though.
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ELLA: are you familiar with the mystery series about the Constable "Evan Evans". He lives in a Welsh village where everyone is named Evans, and people are called by their job (Evans-the baker etc).
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/rhys-bowen/
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Ella! Welcome, welcome!
Oh I'm betting you'll find plenty to say....I hope so, anyway, because we always benefit from your thoughts!
We begin February 9th with a bang up question!
Joan K, how neat! I am not familiar with those books, I'll get one and see how I like it.
Everybody is welcome!
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Ella, Evans is very common, I know, but my Mom was also an Evans, from Merthyr Tidfil.
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Hmm, am here, but not quite sure what I will contribute. I am not fond of digressions.
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Why, Stephanie! How nice to see you here! I will bet you a lunch you will enjoy this one!! Welcome!
:)
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marking
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I'll give it a whirl.
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Halcyon! Fabulous!! So glad to see you here and Salan as well! Wonderful!!
I'm really looking forward to hearing what everybody thinks about the issues we'll bring up here. That's often the MOST fun, because we're all so different. So many different lifetime experiences, theoretically we should all see something different.
We'll find out Monday the 9th! Everybody read it before Monday, if you can, it's in the heading. Although I have to be honest and say that I doubt I'll ever think of it again without that song running through my head, she really nailed that, I think.
But I've got a million questions with no answers, so I am very excited to finally get to do this!
Everyone is welcome!
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The Book Club Online is the oldest book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone. We offer cordial discussions of one book a month, 24/7 and enjoy the company of readers from all over the world. Everyone is welcome.
February Book Club Online:
The Lady of Shalott
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892 )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Ladywaterhousehalfsickofshadows.jpg)
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, “I am half-sick of shadows” (1916)
We've all heard of it, but what's it about, again? People have been enjoying arguing over the message for 150 years. When's the last time you read it?
Why not join us February 9? Read it in 5 minutes, talk about it the rest of your life. What does a 150 year old poem by Tennyson have to say to us in 2015? Come tell us your thoughts about the many issues it raises: a woman who looks at life literally second hand, not only through a window but through a mirror as well, not daring to take part. What does that mean or say to us? Is the Internet in some ways a mirror freeing us from the closeness of face to face interaction?
We'll have a great time with this one! Do join us and share your thoughts starting February 9.
DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:
February 9-28
Interesting Links: :
~ Enjoy this haunting rendition of the poem in ballad form by Loreen McKenna with many beautiful illustrations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0rVNQw1DQM)
~A comparison of editions: 1833 and 1842 by The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/shalcomb.htm)
~ Elaine of Astolat links (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/elanmenu.htm)
Elaine of Astolat is the maiden who dies of unrequited love for Lancelot and floats in a barge to Camelot with a letter for Lancelot clutched in her lifeless hand. She appears in Malory and in Tennyson's idyll of "Lancelot and Elaine." The figure of Elaine in the barge became one of the most popular Victorian images.
~ SC Edu Library Online Text (http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/tenn/shalott.html)
~ A wonderful page on the Lady by a pathologist with a very clever way of comparing the editions. (http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm)
Discussion Leader: ginny (gvinesc@gmail.com )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Beyondbattlemet.jpg)
And there are knights in shining armor, too!! How up ARE you on your knights and armor? Take This delightful quiz from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/interactives/adults-teachers/beyond-battle) and enjoy finding out!
I posted but I don't see my message. Actually, just as well, as I do not like poetry. And after reading The Lady of Shalott, I don't see anything to change my mind.
Marj
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OH! Well that's certainly a downer. hahahaa
I was so excited to see your name, too.
It's the ideas I want to talk about, they are not germane to poetry. :)
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Well- I've been away from here for some time but this piqued my interest. I'm using my IPad which I'm still learning , so am approaching with caution :D
I've got issues- Marcie signed me on with the link but my old password didn't work. Just book marked you Ginny and hope to read this one to the finish.
When I read it in high school lit class, I contacted the Asian flu and I was out of commission for a long time, finally they closed the school and our Lady of Shallot got lost in the the epidemic. So now I rejoin her cracked mirror some 55 years later!
I'm excited to be back and see so many of my old friends still here. I have missed this.
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'It's the ideas.'
Ah, shucks. I'm in it for the poetry and the graphics.
Well! Glory be! ALF! How nice to see you, and how nice to hear that you got over that flu. I always did enjoy your posts, starting with that other boat ride: The Ancient Mariner. You won't remember me. Ginny consigned me to the crow's nest on that voyage. For this one I'm bringing my own little shallop. And it does not rhyme with Shalott.
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We seem to have a nautical theme here. Bring your rowing technique from the "Boat" discussion, JONATHAN. The poor Lady may need it.
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Hi ALF! Welcome back.
I am so happy to see some of our old friends who have been silent for a while popping in again.
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Of course I remember you Jonathan. I loved ur interesting posts as well.
Joan, Frybaby I'm so happy u both are still with SeniorLearn. I've been away for a long time, dealing with life as she meets me!
This yr I can see again after retinal surgery. Tough to keep an old broad down. :'(
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You bet!!!
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Tra la - couldn't get in yesterday - Alf, how great to see you -
Interesting all the talk of Camelot - I think of Yeats more than Tennyson being associated with the Arthur stories - I wondered then if Yeats had ever written anything about the Lady of Shalott - ha my spell check wanted to make her coming from an onion ::) - anyhow poking around the various web sites I found so many sites and a few that showed the landscape of the island where the story takes place - no direct link between the two authors on this topic but each touch on the glory of this past, one from England and the other from Ireland. Yeats does say that Tennyson is one of his writing role models.
Over the years I have read this work and each time with a different point of view - everything from the metaphor to an artist, the view of women in society, and the one viewpoint that has stuck with me the longest is from an interior analogy. I am looking forward to the various viewpoints that this discussion should bring out - what fun...
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Ooops. We start tomorrow. Better get busy.
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Yes, just hours away from embarking on another fabulous voyage.
Your spell check, Barb, is onto something. Getting at the truths in this poem is like peeling an onion, verily.
Tennyson does enjoy sending people off in boats. Remember Ulysses. And now The Lady. But how about this spledid little epitaph he did for Sir John Franklin, lost in the Arctic. On the cenotaph in Westminster Abbey:
'Not here! the white North has thy bones; and thou, Heroic sailor soul, Art passing on thine happier voyage now Toward no earthly pole.'
Good luck, Lady.
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Well my goodness!~ Look at the wonderful surprises here! I'm just in from a wonderful trip and find Andrea (ALF) back!~ Hooray!! Welcome back, Andrea, we have missed you so much, and I am glad to hear of your successful retinal surgery!
And Jonathan!! SO glad to see you here, what a metaphor about the onion, well done!! I thought you made up that word shallop and I find to my shock you did not, that's exactly what she is shown floating down the river.... I've learned something! And oh, the rolling Tennyson phrases, thank you for that quote.
And Barbara, welcome, welcome. I know what you mean about prior readings, and what an interesting statement from Yeats about Tennyson. i hope everybody will continue to bring interesting background material and perspectives to the discussion. We will need them.
But from what angle SHALL we begin? Which of the many ways to look at the Lady shall we take?
I am remembering The Yellow Wallpaper discussion particularly fondly and our first ever book club discussion on SeniorNet, Snow Falling on Cedars, in 1996.. and we started both if I recall correctly with one simple question, and we asked everybody to PLEASE talk to the others in the room about what their thoughts were on that question or perhaps something said in the discussion, responses, or ideas others bring up in response. In other words, it's to be a conversation. And I need your help in making it so, in talking to each other.
So to start us off tomorrow, February 9th, Monday, here is our first Topic du Jour or springboard for your thoughts:
What, in one word, is this poem about? Tell us why you think so.... what you see in the poem that indicates that idea to you. Let's see how many different ideas we can get and go from there.
Everyone is welcome!
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I enjoyed reading the poem, sad and beautiful.
On the face it is lovely; making it into an allegory of an artist's life rather spoils it a bit, but not much. Did Tennyson actually say it was allegorical of an artist's life, or is that the opinion of others? How did she end up with the curse in the first place?
For the most part, I think Tennyson was right to revise it. When I am awake enough I want to reread the original bits.
Ginny, I'd say it is about the shattering of self-delusions and it's possible consequences (definitely not one word). Or you could say, the dangers of going out, from a sheltered life, into the real world emotionally unprepared.
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My first question is - is this a mythical,allegorical, just a plain fancy fairytale or is it a tale of a deluded woman who has enclosed herself into the bowels of this castle, depressed and frightened to face the reality of the outside world?
Who has demanded that she weave a tapestry thru REFLECTION, forbidding her to see life as it is?
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While folding clothes I was considering Tennyson. Could this be from a guilty conscience, harbored by the Lady?
C.S. Lewis said:
"For an autonomous faculty like a sense cannot be argued with; you cannot argue a man into seeing green if he sees blue."
What is reflected?
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Gosh I think you both have raised some wonderful points already!
I actually tried to summarize what you've both said and I think your thoughts are so rich in context we need to look at them as they are.
First:
On the face it is lovely; making it into an allegory of an artist's life rather spoils it a bit, but not much. Did Tennyson actually say it was allegorical of an artist's life, or is that the opinion of others? How did she end up with the curse in the first place?
That's a good question! I thought that idea came from a scholar or critic, I'd like to know more. I did not see that IN it and now it's been raised it's interesting, isn't it? The Lady (why is it always a LADY in a tower) obsessed by her work but the issue Andrea raised, I think, was the one which is quite striking:
What's keeping her there?
I love the mystery of that and did you notice, Frybabe mentions the revision and that Tennyson was wise TO revise. We may want to look at that.
I think one startling thing WAS the revision about the curse...did you all think so?
If you don't know what we're talking about, look at the pathologist's website in the heading above, he's got the two versions laid out so you can compare them.
The so called "curse" really interests me.
Ginny, I'd say it is about the shattering of self-delusions and it's possible consequences (definitely not one word). Or you could say, the dangers of going out, from a sheltered life, into the real world emotionally unprepared.
I did want to put these initiaial What's the Poem About in the heading so we cold compare them later when we're finished discussing it but even I can see it would make it too long.
Shattering of Self Delusions...what are her self delusions? How do we know? Is everybody self deluded? What are some of ours?
What an interesting and wonderful start and now on to Andrea!~
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Now Andrea, in this, you have hit on the same thing that really struck me initially:
Who has demanded that she weave a tapestry thru REFLECTION, forbidding her to see life as it is?
Exactly!~ And in fact who has demanded she can't leave? And who has demanded as you say she can't even look out a window? That's pretty powerful stuff there.
And when you read the poems side by side you get the first version:
Now the first version here is from 1842 but the earlier version here below is from 1832...so 10 years later he wanted to clear things up a little bit:
II
1842:
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.
1832:
No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmèd web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
There's a big difference, to me, in these two versions.
In the last corrected version she has heard a whisper say...she has heard a whisper...from whom?
How does she eat?
How about toilet matters?
Are there servants?
What is she doing up there alone and what's the difference if she has heard a whisper that a curse is on her or the stated fact that a curse IS on her?
I find the curse or the whisper of the curse very interesting and maybe the key to the entire thing.
Whence comes this curse?
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She doesn't even know what the curse IS, she's just heard a rumor....???
And then...
My first question is - is this a mythical,allegorical, just a plain fancy fairytale or is it a tale of a deluded woman who has enclosed herself into the bowels of this castle, depressed and frightened to face the reality of the outside world?
Again I think you have put your finger on this as well. If WE, the readers, can't figure it out, should we just then consign it to another fairy tale with the woman in the tower (why are they always in towers, what does that symbolize?) OR is it Tennyson and his muse... I have more trouble with that one...And how many MANY MANY times have we seen an author think he is saying one thing and we hear something else.
I wonder if a Victorian "I died for love" would read this the same way we do in 2015...
and why do you say she is deluded?
Do we all think she is frightened? And if so, of what?
(And remember, we don't seek consensus here, just ideas).
I can see we can't put all this in the heading, but everybody please refer back to these thoughts as you go.
What is reflected? THAT is another good question!~ Why "reflected" in the first place?
Super start on the discussion!
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My idea of a fairy tale has always been happily ever after so this seems more realistic to me. No prince charming to save her. Was Tennyson ahead of his time saying women had to save themselves?
Having seen the play "In The Next Room" yesterday I am today much influenced by the by the expected behavior of Victorian women.
Women were constricted not only by their corsets but by the mores of the times. Responding badly sometimes meant these women suffered from hysteria. Under those conditions anyone would suffer from hysteria. I think the whispers the Lady hears are like harpies telling her "This is the way a proper lady behaves," and the curse is "What will they say." The ubiquitous they.
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Oh thank you Ginny, I thought I was way off base on this one. ( actually we all seem befuddled.)
Deluded, as in duped, misguided or tricked?
It seems absurd that she would have remained in the castle (unless she was like Rapunzel awaiting freedom.)
LOL Ginny - why indeed is it always the females who have been stuck up in the tower? That could lead to a whole different discussion; captivity,restraint - not to mention phallic?
I'm going to have to REREAD these 2 diffent versions. Something's missing beside the answers. Did any of you teachers teach this poem?
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I missed your post Halcyon, I'm sorry.
Perhaps you are on to something here. We, the ladies of this century respond much differently than the Victorian damsels, don't we? Perhaps that's why I have such trouble "Getting it."
They were prudish and very conservative ladies, weren't they? I guess I have a different character than the prim and proper ladies like Maggie Smiths character on Downton Abbey.
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The last stanza of the poem was changed considerably.
1842:
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."
1832:
They crossed themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire and guest,
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest,
The wellfed wits at Camelot.
"The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not -- this is I,
The Lady of Shalott."
I like most of the 1942 version better, but do like that Tennyson changed the ending speaker from the Lady to a statement from Lancelot. It changes the tenor/mood a bit don't you think? After completely ignoring her when he passed by, Lancelot is showing some compassion/sympathy.
I do like "That puzzled more than all the rest, The wellfed wits at Camelot" a lot, although I can't see exactly why a suicide note would be a puzzlement.
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FryBaby- Haha notice " the well fed wits" @ Camelot". It sounds as if they were clueless to me who she even was.
I prefer the 1832 version,myself, because the maiden is speaking. She tells everything on her parchment. I keep going over what that parchment said & what it meant. It doesn't sound as if Lancelot has a clue either.
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Oops I've forgotten how to use the B button . Sorry . Help
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That puzzled more than all the rest, The wellfed wits at Camelot.
Perhaps it means that the people of Camelot were fat and happy and did not have a clue why someone would commit suicide.
How would Lancelot even know he was the cause of her death? Could anyone see in her tower?
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That puzzled more than all the rest, The wellfed wits at Camelot.
Perhaps it means that the people of Camelot were fat and happy and did not have a clue why someone would commit suicide.
How would Lancelot even know he was the cause of her death? Could anyone see in her tower?
The people living near the tower knew at least something about the lady, but what did the "wellfed wits", or the rest of Camelot know about the lady and the curse? If they didn't know, her note would be hard to figure out:
"The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not -- this is I,
The Lady of Shalott."
How could Lancelot know he was the cause of her death? He surely couldn't; even if he saw her, he wouldn't know that her reaction to his gorgeous appearance led to her death.
This is different from the medieval story of Elaine and Lancelot, the one Tennyson said he took the story from. In it, he knows very well that he has caused her death. Elaine specifically accuses him in her note. She had fallen in love with him, but he refused to return her love. She sees she is dying of love and arranges to float to Camelot, bearing the note accusing Lancelot of cruelty.
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The 1842 version of the last stanza alters the whole mood of the ending. The townspeople are not only puzzled, but afraid. And Lancelot, looking at her, is moved by her beauty, and blesses her, showing a tenderness toward her (absent in the other 2 versions) that would have been hopeful except that she's already dead, a sort of might-have-been.
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PatH-
What do you think the townspeople feared? Death intruding on their idyllic existence? Makes me think of JFK lying in state.
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To me the river is the most powerful symbol (maybe it's just me - I like rivers). Somehow, it's the river of life, and she keeps having to weave the web of her reality every day. She sees something more glorious than her woven reality, and her self- woven reality isn't enough any more. (I'm making this up as I go -- don't know if it makes sense).
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JoanK, I did notice that he placed more emphasis on the river in the 1842 version. I think that was appropriate given that the Lady lived on an island in the river. The reaper turned into reapers and became secondary to the river.
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JoanK
Are you still in the boat? Haha
Don't we all weave the web of our own reality every day? I like the way you phrased that. Was she stepping out of her comfort zone? If so, it didn't work out very well.
ALF
I've been thinking about towers as phallic symbols which makes sense to me on some level but it's usually some which that has cast the spell that results in the maiden being in the tower. That made me wonder who wrote these fairy tales? I thought they were stories passed down from generation to generation. Sorry, I seem to be rambling and all over the place with this. It's fun.
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The fairy Lady is dead. She could be seen at her casement from time to time, with a wave of her hand. She could be heard singing in the moonlight The world was captivated by her.
And at the end Lancelot, looking at her on her bier, 'mused a little space...she has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace.'
That's showing tenderness? Lancelot is a fake. If this poem can be summed up in a few words, it would be: behold the dark side of Camelot. Never be taken in by a knight in shining armor.
Leave her to heaven...indeed!
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Oh, Jonathan, you are so right. Never be taken in by a knight in thing armor.
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Ha HAAA, good heavens what comments, you dazzle. It's dazzling.
Wait wait wait, Jonathan!!
Lancelot is a fake?!!! How on earth does he know about her? Where do you see her waving from the window? Is he out there at midnight to hear her singing? I thought nobody heard her but those reaping or something? At midnight?
The man rides by and sings on his horse. He's a cowboy of the Middle Ages and he's singing on the way to Camelot, what is his own connection in any way to her?
As you go down the street in your car singing, is it your fault if somebody you pass by sees you out of a window?
What's fake about him? What do you make of that changed ending concerning him?
Good heavens and here I thought the only fireworks I'd see this week were at Disney World. hahahaa
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Halcyon said, I think the whispers the Lady hears are like harpies telling her "This is the way a proper lady behaves," and the curse is "What will they say." The ubiquitous they.
Oh now THAT'S interesting!!! But now why would ladies of that era expect her to keep to her loom and not even look out the window? Or am I being too literal?
My idea of a fairy tale has always been happily ever after so this seems more realistic to me. No prince charming to save her. Was Tennyson ahead of his time saying women had to save themselves?
Happily ever after and so many of them are so brutal. But in the end they are supposed to end happily ever after, I wonder why this does not? I'm trying to see what the moral of this might be IF it's a fairy tale, that is. If Tennyson is saying women had to save themselves, she sure did not. Is that the point? Leave your muse and die?
How do you commit suicide by sitting in a boat? How far TO Camelot is it, anyway?
Andrea you like the 1832 better? She is speaking thru the note? Frybabe has put it here:
"The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not -- this is I,
The Lady of Shalott."
What on earth does that mean?
Pat H: How would Lancelot even know he was the cause of her death? And I think Halcyon said it too. Could anyone see in her tower?
Me, too. I don't understand how this can be unrequited love. I don't think he knows anything about it, he's riding by, there's a tower, some people....not many, some....have heard her in there sometimes singing.. Nobody has seen her!
Yet 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?
Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early
Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
Like an angel, singing clearly,
O'er the stream of Camelot.
Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,
Beneath the moon, the reaper weary
Listening, whispers, "'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."
Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the beared barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to towered Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."
Yet who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she know in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
I don't think that anybody has ever seen her at all. Nobody has even seen her wave her hand? Or stand at the window. Nobody has even seen her.
In fact, I don't see how anybody thought she was real at all. Aren't both of those versions calling her a fairy?
So nobody has seen her, and she's taken on this fairy like reputation or aura so she herself is almost a symbol of...what? Maybe it's all symbols.
What IS unrequited love? I thought it was love which is not returned. If I don't know XXx loves me how can I return it and who says it's love, for Pete's sake? All she did was turn to look at him.
That's a good point PatH and Frybabe both make. The different endings convey different things. In the last ending Lancelot takes a part and shows some mercy, the others are staring...her name is on the prow of the ship and he...I think he IS showing some tenderness. Nobody else is, in either version, are they? One version shows fear.
Why him tho? In both versions she has to introduce herself, by prow writing or by parchment , to whoever may find her. I am confused by that. How long HAS she been up there?
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You know what just flew into my head? Fractured Fairy Tales. Remember those?
If we assume Tennyson had a purpose, what message did you get from the 1832 version that you don't from the 1842 one? Anybody know why he changed it?
This is the kind of poem one wants answers to. One wants somebody to swan in and give all the "right" answers. If it's an allegory, which Andrea asked way back there, what might the different parts symbolize?
Jonathan says the dark side of Camelot.
And Joan K and the river: "To me the river is the most powerful symbol (maybe it's just me - I like rivers). Somehow, it's the river of life, and she keeps having to weave the web of her reality every day. She sees something more glorious than her woven reality, and her self- woven reality isn't enough any more."
Her "self woven reality" isn't enough any more. What an interesting thought. That might apply to so many things. A lot of people say that the internet is a kind of self woven reality, that people are not always what they seem to be or purport themselves to be.
Some analysts go further. They say the internet, the i phone, etc., etc., etc., has changed our human interaction forever. Note people out to eat. Out come the iphones...everybody at the table is "talking" to others not there. What does that say about our society in 2015?
Is it a way of keeping people at bay in some ways, of keeping them at arm's length, of controlling the depth of intrusion? Or is it the opposite? In her case, something changed and she entered the real world.
What a disappointment that she failed....am I the only one who feels that disappointment? What did Tennyson mean by it? The original note that she supposedly wrote on parchment makes no sense to me. As quoted it's not a suicide note.
That was also interesting about what Pat said about the original Elaine and Lancelot which Tennyson said he took it from, and the contrast is interesting, thank you for bringing it here.
I don't see how Lancelot could have caused anything in this poem. And we have to ask who did?
I also agree with Halcyon this is fun! :)
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The suicide note just stated who she was and that they should fear not- the Lady of Camelot!
Why would they fear her when they had never seen her?
Lancelot found her lovely so she certainly did not secrete herself in the tower due to any physical deformity. Ahh perhaps she was a leper! I wish Tennyson were around. We'd give him a run for his stanzas. :)
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The combination of the deaths of his father and his best friend, the brutal reviews of his poTems, his conviction that both he and his family were in desperate poverty, his feelings of isolation in the depths of the country, and his ill-concealed fears that he might become a victim of epilepsy, madness, alcohol, and drugs, as others in his family had, or even that he might die like Hallam, was more than enough to upset the always fragile balance of Tennyson's emotions. "I suffered what seemed to me to shatter all my life so that I desired to die rather than to live," he said of that period. For a time he determined to leave England, and for ten years he refused to have any of his poetry published, since he was convinced that the world had no place for it.
I found this under The Poetry Foundation as part of a biography of Tennyson. His quote "I suffered what seemed......" may be an explanation for the death of the Lady. Note the use of the word "shatter".
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For what it matters to reading the poem - according to if you see the poem as telling a story or as an analogy, this is background that may have value.
The Lady of Shalott was the Lily maid of Astolat, Elaine of Astolat, who died of unfulfilled love for Sir Lancelot. Lancelot enters a jousting tournament hiding his true identity so he asks Elaine to give him a different shield. In return, he agreed to wear her colors in the tournament.
Lancelot wins, but was injured and flees to avoid discovery. Elaine finds him and nursed him back to health. She tells him of her love however, Lancelot could not return her affection because he loved Guinevere.
Heartbroken Elaine dies of grief, but before dying, she writes a letter to Lancelot asking that he bury her. Her father placed the letter in her hand and put her body on a barge, with a mute boatman, who rowed her to King Arthur's court at Camelot. Lancelot sees the barge and recognizes Elaine. When King Arthur read Elaine's letter, he asked Lancelot to bury her, granting her final request.
The impact for me that the story of Elaine of Astolat is from the Arthur stories that are Celtic myths and Tennyson chooses to use some words, things, nature, that are symbolic in Celtic lore which helps the reader go deeper into the poem.
Then we have to decide if the poem speaks to us in a certain way because of what we know today and the imagery we associate with our views on the world around us or are we looking at the poem with the understandings that were typical of the average person soon after the poem was written, when every Tom Dick and Harry was familiar with meanings that came from Celtic Lore - During the time of Tennyson till after WWII corn dollies and other good luck charms could easily be found tucked in the beams and stair cases of country cottages.
Example, he uses the tree, a Willow - which is tied into the cult of Esus - not only was willow considered a cure for sore throats but there was human sacrifice made to the God Esus and Esus in Celtic lore was considered the God of Vegetation - not only were Willow branches easily plyable but surrounding a garden with a willow woven fence was considered good luck. Honoring the God Esus would bring a fruitful harvest from the garden.
And Barley we see often as part of the wreathes and decorations in Autumn which is symbolic for the renewal of life.
Interesting to me in his first version of Part One he talks of a stream and then the second version he changes it to wave - Wave has the traditional meaning of endless movement. Tying that bit to his opening phrase where he speaks of a river, which in poetry usually symbolizes the flux of the world, the continuous change of ideas, ideals, idioms - standards of living and quality of life.
For me the charge to come up with one word to describe the poem - so far, I am still lost in the words, symbols, visualization of Part One, I would say it is a poem about change - change from life to death - from the past to the unknown future - from the weaver, like the spider, creator of fate, carried in death over the water that is the source of all matter - the change we all make as we look at life as if through a mirror - the mirror of our own ideas, ideals, idioms - values, books we read, places we have seen, traditions we experience and hold.
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Great, Barb. You've hit on some of the symbolism of what Tennyson included in his poem. I hadn't thought to look at it in light of Celtic beliefs and superstition.
They were certainly a superstitious bunch back in King Arthur's time, but pagans were not particularly for or against suicide as best as I can tell. However, in the Catholic Church suicide was, by the mid-400's, considered a big no-no under all circumstances. I can imagine the group at Camelot was mostly Christian. Would they not have wanted to touch a suicide for fear it would transfer some stigma to them?
Tennyson's description of Lancelot would have turned any head. First, our Lady noticed that he was traveling alone rather than with others as was apparently usual from what the poem indicated. Then there is the description of a stunning, dazzling dress and equipage both for the horse and the man, a real jaw dropper. I can see how it would have turned her head from the mirror to the real thing.
This brings to mind something one of us (Jonathan?) mentioned earlier. Beware of Knights in Shining Amour, they very often prove false. How many of us as young women or teens looked for or found what appeared to be such a one only to discover later that our expectations were nowhere near the reality regarding the object of our desire? But who was actually false here, The Lady of Shalott or Lancelot? Lancelot the oblivious or the Lady with her overactive imagination?
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The Book Club Online is the oldest book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone. We offer cordial discussions of one book a month, 24/7 and enjoy the company of readers from all over the world. Everyone is welcome.
February Book Club Online:
The Lady of Shalott
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892 )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Ladywaterhousehalfsickofshadows.jpg)
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, “I am half-sick of shadows” (1916)
We've all heard of it, but what's it about, again? People have been enjoying arguing over the message for 150 years. When's the last time you read it?
Why not join us February 9? Read it in 5 minutes, talk about it the rest of your life. What does a 150 year old poem by Tennyson have to say to us in 2015? Come tell us your thoughts about the many issues it raises: a woman who looks at life literally second hand, not only through a window but through a mirror as well, not daring to take part. What does that mean or say to us? Is the Internet in some ways a mirror freeing us from the closeness of face to face interaction?
We'll have a great time with this one! Do join us and share your thoughts starting February 9.
DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:
February 9-28
Interesting Links: :
~ Enjoy this haunting rendition of the poem in ballad form by Loreen McKenna with many beautiful illustrations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0rVNQw1DQM)
~A comparison of editions: 1833 and 1842 by The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/shalcomb.htm)
~ Elaine of Astolat links (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/elanmenu.htm)
Elaine of Astolat is the maiden who dies of unrequited love for Lancelot and floats in a barge to Camelot with a letter for Lancelot clutched in her lifeless hand. She appears in Malory and in Tennyson's idyll of "Lancelot and Elaine." The figure of Elaine in the barge became one of the most popular Victorian images.
~ SC Edu Library Online Text (http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/tenn/shalott.html)
~ A wonderful page on the Lady by a pathologist with a very clever way of comparing the editions. (http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm)
Discussion Leader: ginny (gvinesc@gmail.com )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Beyondbattlemet.jpg)
And there are knights in shining armor, too!! How up ARE you on your knights and armor? Take This delightful quiz from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/interactives/adults-teachers/beyond-battle) and enjoy finding out!
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Halcyon, I love that you're getting background on this, we need it. Thank you. I also found some on the pathguy link in the heading.
Among a lot of other things he says: (and of course this is only his opinion):
What's It All About, Alfie?
Obviously the Lady looking at the world in a mirror and depicting it in a work of art is some kind of allegory for the life of the artist-writer. I think that "The Lady of Shalott" is partly about how being an artist (writer, poet, scholar, etc.) can make you feel isolated from ordinary life. You can develop this idea yourself, based on your own experience and observations.
It's the Lady's romantic yearnings that finally make her look out the window. In the 1830's, a poet was supposed to be a spokesman for a "Victorian" ideal in which sexuality is suppressed. Tennyson wrote "The Lady of Shalott" in his early 20's, just after being forced to leave Cambridge for financial reasons. He would not marry until 1849. The young Tennyson must have wondered whether he could hold to the supposed contemporary standard for a single man rather than seeking out sexual relationships. He must have been afraid that choosing the latter would ruin his morals and his writing.
You can look at Tennyson's own life and letters and decide for yourself to what extent "The Lady of Shalott" reflects the hopes and fears of a young man who grew up bookish, super-smart, isolated, and probably repressed.
You can also look at what others have said about the old question of whether an artist or writer must be isolated from the ordinary world. Shakespeare and Chaucer were men of the world, who probably did not consider their writing to be their main professions. Lord Byron and Robert Burns embraced life and sexuality wholeheartedly. By contrast, Keats dropped out of medical school to become a full-time poet, Coleridge was a passive man who became dependent on the good will of others to be able to continue his work, and Emily Dickinson was a recluse. Bertoldt Brecht pretended to be a man of the working class, but he really had nothing to do with the people for whom he claimed to speak. You can supply many more examples.
Today, "The Lady of Shalott" invites us to think about:
1. What sacrifices must a person make to be a poet, artist, scientist, or scholar? We all have emotional needs. Can we really make these sacrifices? What happens when we fail?
2. Each of us lives partly in a world of make-believe, much of it inherited from our families and our cultures. What happens when it is challenged and/or we choose to discard it?
Wonderful, Barbara! I thought about this all night, the Lady and our one word descriptions which are very very hard to do. So you're saying change. I love the symbolism and you mention barley. The Spark Notes are also online for this, and I recommend them, we need to note that we've not yet addressed the fact of the first stanzas of the poem, nor the meter but that can come later)...am still thinking of my one word. The stream to wave is also very astute!
Apparently the thing is not slap dash but written with a great deal of care.
I agree Frybabe, I do like the symbolism, because...well I keep thinking of Robert Frost: a poem should not MEAN, but BE. But this one seems to have to MEAN, other wise it makes no sense.
So many whirling images you've all brought up, how can we gather them together to understand them?
So far we've got Lancelot: guilty or not? Involved or not? If his remarks concerned her suicide, wasn't that kindly or not?
We've got the suicide. What suicide? Where's the note? What does the note we do have in the first version mean? How did she do it?
How can you die for love? She's a young woman. Why does the note say don't be afraid?
Questions questions questions.
Andrea you are such a hoot I laughed half the night over that leper thing.
Yes and the Knights in Shining Armor, what might they symbolize? I got that from what you just said, Frybabe. ...we have symbols in 2015, too. I just got back from a wonderful trip for my birthday with my son and family and grandson to Disney World. And it was truly the Magic Kingdom promised. When you think of Disney World, which bills itself as the Happiest Place on Earth, what do you think of? We have a lot of symbols in today's world. Symbols of good, and evil.
I still like Joan K's thing about her weaving, the thing which has sustained her to the point she's singing in her tower, (you don't sing if you're not happy) running out...it ran out. Is this symbolic, too? And if in sinc, the water turns to waves.
What if the thing you have always hung your hat on runs out for you? Is that inevitable with aging? And if it happens, then what do you do?
Do you try something new? What does it take for you to do that?
Will the mirror crack from side to side as you enter the real world again? What does the mirror's cracking symbolize if anything?
I don't see an artist here, regardless of what the son of Tennyson says his father intended.
I see, in 2015, a person dedicated to what she thinks is meaningful in her life and finding it no longer matters to her. So what to do?
This apparently is something Tennyson knew personally. Maybe in his writing, aren't they all superstitious about writer's block, etc? He SAYS if you read the pathguy link, that he did NOT know about the legend of Elaine....do you believe that?
The one word might be identity. Her entire identity is wrapped up in her work. It sustains her. We don't know how. Everybody is different, has different passions and interests. She weaves and she sings, but she weaves things she sees in the reflection of a mirror. Why can't I stop thinking about the Biblical quote: For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
1 Corinthians 13:12
Some translations of that have the word reflection in it.
I wonder if this could be an allegory for life instead of Tennyson and his writing art or something about Camelot. I never have thought the Camelot theme really is what he's talking about. But do YOU? That's the crux.
I'm going to say on my own part that my one word is identity. The changed note originally said that, it is I....it's about me, this entire thing is about "me." Not Lancelot, not a curse, not Camelot, I put my own curse on myself in the changed version. How is she hearing whispers? Who is whispering to her in that tower? Other than herself? Even in the final version she writes her name on the boat. ME...And if all the other Victorian heroines are going down in boats and dying for love this one at least wants it known who she is.
And then of course we have "them." The others, the townsfolk, the reapers, Lancelot himself, other knights, life passing her by. But she never minded until now.
Thank you so much for talking to each other, it's wonderful! I am so enjoying the conversation and going away and thinking about what you've said.
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'Lancelot the oblivious or the Lady with her overactive imagination?'
A case could certainly be made for that, Frybabe. I see only the conceit in the one and yearning in the other. Both are suffering from illusions
What do we know, or imagine, about Camelot? It's where we are heading from the very beginning. It runs like a refrain through the poem. And the Lady does get there. She knew she would have to die to get there. Let's not miss the mysticism in the poem.
Right on, Barb. It's so easy to get lost in this one. Even the poet realized that when he set out to write the second version. I believe Lancelot and Elaine was written years later, after Tennyson had thought some more about it. The whole sequence was something like the story of his own life.
I can't believe it was suicide. But somehow she knew she would not be alive when she got there. Is it any surprise that everyone shuddered when she came wafted on the river that flows through Camelot. Everyone except Lancelot. For him she was a pretty face.
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Just saw your post, Ginny. Be back later with a comment.
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To me, the poem doesn't seem to be about an artist's life, but I can see you can make a good case for it--the lady compelled to weave a picture of the life outside, but not be a part of it.
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He SAYS if you read the pathguy link, that he did NOT know about the legend of Elaine....do you believe that?
Ginny
I stopped reading the path guy pretty quickly, because his ideas were swamping out my own thoughts, and I wanted to think it through without being steered. But your Elaine of Astolat link makes it clear. Tennyson said he hadn't read Malory's Morte D'Arthur, which would have been what most people read, but he had read a 13th century Italian version, La Demigella di Scalot.
It's hard to believe he hadn't read Malory, but in all the versions (there are two more between Demigella and Malory) Elaine is different from the Lady in the poem in that she isn't secluded, and takes an active part in the story. In Demigella, she declares her love and he refuses to return it. In the others, she gets Lancelot to wear her favor in a tournament. (This was some article of a lady's, like a sash or a sleeve, worn by a knight to show he was fighting for her glory.) In some, he is wounded and she nurses him back to health. In some, she is very manipulative to try to get him to do what she wants.
Whatever version(s) Tennyson knew, he made a drastic change by making her secluded. Why did he do this? It must be central to his purpose. What is he saying?
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Oh my oh my you ladies amaze me with your thoughts. It changes my perspective as I think about this being a bastardization of Elaine of Astolat. Isn't that akin to plagerism?
But pat, wasn't it self seclusion, by the Lady? Choices,choices and more choices in life & she took the low road of self sacrifice? Or was it a punishment she inflicted on herself?
Did Tennyson ever clarify his intent?
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I've had a long drive today and plenty of time to think about the Lady. It flew into my head that Camelot is represents perfection and the Lady represents Ev's apple or Pandora's box. Thus the fear of the townspeople when they saw her. Their world was shattered. I'm curious, Jonathan, why do you think Lancelot was a fake? Because of his affair with Guinevere?
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Oh yes Halcyon, I can see that analogy that Camelot represents perfection - had not thought of the lady much like the Eve story but is sure fits doesn't it.
Hmm Alf, you bring up intent - now I am really back to seeing this mini story as an allegory because you are right - for everything that happens we usually consider intent where as, if the action or dress or place etc etc. are symbolic then it reminds us more of a prayer or a witches sing - said with lots of lovely words using many lovely images.
Earlier was it Ginny - someone brought up her death and suggested we do not just die of unrequited love - dying from love sounds romantic and all that but to take it literally I wonder, I do not think the poem is meant for us to become detectives - I am smiling thinking of it as a 'who done it' - with all the forensic testing - hehe that is so close to those who say, enjoy a poem and stop tearing it apart - and yet, as someone here said, this one begs for a deeper interpretation.
Writing any story based on real experiences, we read over and over how the element of the experience is transfered to a character who could even be of the opposite sex as compared to the real character's story and how the death of someone in real life can be translated to loss and just the opposite, someone's loss can be transfered into a story by describing a death.
Hmm I am wondering now if she was happy as a weaver in her weaving room why on earth would you leave the good life - is it a case of thinking the grass is greener kind of impulse - that Lancelot awakens new yearnings that are available in Camelot - but then Eve had no preconceived purpose - according to that myth she just shows up to tempt Adam.
The mirror - we consider it a symbol as we read and yet, I remember visiting and taking the tour through The Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris. The tour is completely in French that was over my head but in the small group, there were about 8, a husband and wife were American and when I asked the question aloud without remembering I would get no answer they told me in English the purpose of all the small mirrors that were hanging behind a work in process. Like all good needlework artists the aim is for the back of the work to look as good as the front, as if they could be interchangeable - Plus, looking in a mirror you do see images in the opposite, juxtaposition.
Few do needlework any longer that was still practiced trying to capture the past workmanship as recently as 30 years ago. And so it may not occur to us to consider the mirror as a symbol of opposites or the perfection of the underside which, in Victoria Britain could mean the perfection of our spirit, our soul - that the weaving is simply representing our daily living and work, our contribution to society and the underside of our life and the way we work is the character building exploration that can only be done with a mirror since it reflects the past, the work completed so far, although looking in the mirror can guide and influence our future.
hmm Maybe this poem has many messages as we relate our "river" of our life to the words left to us by Tennyson.
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My one word is disenchantment. The fairy lady certainly broke the spell she had woven round herself and floating to Camelot on her death boat, well she shattered their illusio of perfection. What do you suppose those upstanding townspeople did with her? Let her float by? Buried her?
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Wow, Barb. The information about the The Manufacture des Gobelins is fascinating. I had no idea they used mirrors when weaving a tapestry.
In this explanation, it article states that mirrors were used in high-warp looms, but as a method of showing the tapestry pattern behind the loom. The mirror reflected the pattern which was hung on the wall behind the loom. It was a way to preserve the paper pattern against wear. http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/divineart/tapdesign I couldn't find any old illustrations that actually show the mirror placement, at least not that I could identify.
This Instagram photo does show, according to the legend, a tapestry with mirror. http://instagram.com/p/wb9nGeL79V/ It's difficult to tell which is which.
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Gosh what wonderful insightful thoughts you've all put in here. I'm just loving it. Mirrors. And the issue of perhaps too close reading, tearing something apart, I sure want to discuss THAT one! :)
I have a long trip out of town today, too, and this gives me a lot of stuff to chew on.
The more I read this and the more I read what you all are thinking which I'd like to address when I get back tonight, the more I can see modern parallels and how can that be?
I agree that the PathGuy lays out one version, and I like Pat's idea of not influencing our own ideas to his at this stage if ever.
What do you think of his question here:
2. Each of us lives partly in a world of make-believe, much of it inherited from our families and our cultures. What happens when it is challenged and/or we choose to discard it?
Do you agree with the first sentence? Does this apply to the Lady? We don't like to have our own heritage challenged, by anybody, but we can certainly see it in others, so the hard question is: can there be any truth at all to that first statement? I'm going to be interested to see what you think. I'm asking if there can be any relevance in the Lady to us today in 2015?
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The one word I think of is romantic.
I know that's pretty much all I got out of the poem the first time I read it, back when a teen.
Even now, when I try to approach it from a more "English major" stance, it's still more like a daydream of a young woman who wants a "knight in shining armor riding a white charger" to rescue her from her boring life.
And maybe that's the curse - that when the lady stopped looking at life through the mirror and instead faced it, her dreams were shattered.
And the fear of the people? The body of the young woman reminded them or their own mortality.
I am enjoying reading everyone's comments here.
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JONATHAN: "What do we know, or imagine, about Camelot? It's where we are heading from the very beginning. It runs like a refrain through the poem"
Yes, it's a shining city, I was thinking a symbol for heaven. But when we get there, it's not all that attractive: the people are overfed and indifferent. What's THAT about.
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" 2. Each of us lives partly in a world of make-believe, much of it inherited from our families and our cultures."
As a Sociologist, I am very aware of this. Sociologists have a saying: "the fish cannot see the water it's swimming in. Only by leaving the water and looking back, can we see it.
But I think Tennyson is dealing with something more universal here: the seeing through a glass darkly; the Buddhist idea that the world is an illusion.
"What happens when it is challenged and/or we choose to discard it?"
That's the question isn't it? In Buddhism, you achieve Nirvana. Is that why she says not to be afraid?
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Wow nlhome I sure like what you see in the poem - a look at the expectations for so many women as girls and as I've spent time looking at various blogs seems to me it is still a prevalent thought that someone is going to give them something or take away their loneliness - never would have imagined so many lonely collage aged girls but the internet blogs are full of them. I wonder if we all have images of what our married life will be like even as we marry and then to be able to go with what really happens. Well that could be a discussion in itself couldn't it - I still wonder though if we all have a Camelot in our mind's eye that if only this or that we could be living in our own Camelot. This could also be the intent that Alf was talking about yesterday - part of the why - at least why she leaves her weaving room.
Frybabe interesting information you found - makes sense doesn't it - what I can remember was there were at mostly 4 young women a few had 5 working on a tapestry or carpet, sitting on a long bench - the looms were upright and hanging from that top bar where all the warp threads were attached dangled these mirrors - not big - maybe 8X10 or even maybe 9X12 - hanging at various heights - I can see from what you are saying the looms that were near the walls could be following a pattern pinned to the wall but the patterns for the looms in the middle of the room seemed to be on a stretched upright stand alone frame, placed about 2 feet from the loom and the pattern was done in shades of ochra as if string was used and dyed in various teas and yet, they too had mirrors dangling - I would love to go back with a French/English guide who could get answers to my curiosities - I did notice the girls were all young - not children but young and since, I've learned it is because they have slim and daft fingers and hands. There were I would guess about 15 to maybe 20 of these looms in this huge room- nicely lit by huge high windows, probably facing north since there was no shafts of sunlight and plenty of space between looms.
The looms looked more like this but at least 3 or 4 times as wide
(https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSdatUDkvY08uHQTjTsp3w3p9irOkt-idIc4t8jMQSbPqdJZDYi)
Rather than the loom most of us know that are used in places like Barea College
(https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQSQXM3RbmaTTD2zxS-FGztSjB2N88HRlhPAWQ4TrjC7TvZVSKN)
I wonder if our Lady from Shalott was working on a loom that looked more like this one.
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQgoAgazxw6t9qA_LczS-oiGeHvRd9QBLfpccKgaTchFj67VDQ)
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JoanK you posted while I was writing away - I really like the quote - "the fish cannot see the water it's swimming in. Only by leaving the water and looking back, can we see it." - Boy can I wrestle with that one at this time in my life - I need to really think of what to do and where to go - I am loosing my friends and the contacts that anchored me to this location - ha I guess rather than looking at Camelot I am fantasizing re-creating the waters that are drying up.
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OH man, such fabulous thoughts AGAIN! How do you all come up with these? Each is just shining.
I need to put the "one words" in the heading because (I would put everything you've said in the heading but it would soon become too long) but at least I can put up the one words because they are so interesting and different, and I think perhaps the poem is all of these, really. All of them.
This was a good point: What do we know, or imagine, about Camelot? It's where we are heading from the very beginning. It runs like a refrain through the poem. And the Lady does get there. She knew she would have to die to get there. Let's not miss the mysticism in the poem.
Jonathan said that. She knew she would have to die to get to Camelot. There does seem to be an awful lot of mysticism here.
But then Joan K points out when she does get there....
Yes, it's a shining city, I was thinking a symbol for heaven. But when we get there, it's not all that attractive: the people are overfed and indifferent. What's THAT about.
Can there be, I wonder ANY perfect place or is her longing for it and the bright shining knights, (note how bright and shining they are) which creates a web...maybe (and I'm just extrapolating here) the web and trap and curse is actually her own distortion of the truth... but then...what does it mean " I am half sick of shadows," cried the Lady of Shalott.
Does she realize at last that it's all been an illusion? Disenchantment as Halcyon said?
Who wouldn't be disenchanted if everything they thought was bright and pure turned out otherwise? But she really did not KNOW it was otherwise.
I wonder if we admire her or feel sorry for her in her efforts to try to find out, to change. And I wonder if that's why Jonathan said Lancelot was fake, Jonathan wants more sympathy for the poor woman (chivalrous person that he is?)_
Let me start a new post here.....
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Do forgive this rambling post but I would like to try to cover a lot of things.
Nilhome, you are amazing. I think the element of Romance is important here, maybe more important than we have thought about. This is considered a ballad, we need to try to look at why.
But I was really struck by your statement: It's still more like a daydream of a young woman who wants a "knight in shining armor riding a white charger" to rescue her from her boring life.
I don't know what's wrong with ME but I did not see that, believe it or not. I do now that you mention it but initially I did not see her wanting to be rescued...where has my mind been? Lady in tower, who is going to come to her rescue UNLESS it's a knight in shining armor. Don't they always come? Is that why some of us are irritated at Lancelot?
So now I'm sort of wavering back again. IS she...to whom does ...I hate to use the word blame...whose is the burden/ fault/ blame if she's in the tower? Andrea seems to feel she's done it to herself. (So do I). Is it really a curse? Do we all believe this? If she's delusional (which certainly seems to be the case) (or?) then...I am trying to reconcile with her wanting to be rescued like every other romantic fairy tale and her doing essentially nothing to bring that about until she took those three steps and all hockey sticks broke out, or did they?
And then we have: I still wonder though if we all have a Camelot in our mind's eye that if only this or that we could be living in our own Camelot.
Another super question. There's a half billion dollar lottery to be drawn tonight. Is there anybody who has not thought, even once, ONLY once, what we would do with lottery money if he should win it? I have. I don't even have a ticket (I guess I'm more like the Lady than I thought) but I have thought wistfully of how nice it might be, so far as my imagination could take me. And maybe that's the issue with her, actually. So far as her imagination could take her....which apparently was not very far.
And this was interesting: And the fear of the people? The body of the young woman reminded them or their own mortality....This is a super comment on many levels. Is this why people scream when they see somebody dead in the movies? (That may be taking it a stretch)...but you know what i mean...
Barbara, thank you for those looms, the bottom one seems to be like most of the illustrations. This, I thought, was right on the subject: I am loosing my friends and the contacts that anchored me to this location - ha I guess rather than looking at Camelot I am fantasizing re-creating the waters that are drying up.
That's the thing that I think the poem is about.. but we in 2015 may have more resources at our disposal or we may just be different people than she was. But surely none of you can say you don't know ONE person who has chosen to shut themselves out from the world. Do they secretly want to be rescued? Why is that such a sad thought? How can you respond to the needs of others who don't express them?
The internet to me is that mirror, that I thought could connect those who might be isolated in whatever way, by choice, by distance, by location, but we can choose to temper it and control it, she can't. Apparently it's all or nothing, or IS it? Maybe we need to look and see what really happened when she took those three steps through the room.
And I think, and I hope I am not over extrapolating a fairy tale...but I do think that some of the issues she has in that tower are issues that most of us at a certain age, or, in this disinterested world, at any age, are familiar with. What seems to be different is how we are dealing with it.
I really liked Pat's analysis of the difference in the different Elaine stories. There seem to be a lot of them. And we just take it for granted that it's some kind of myth that it's OK to keep adding on to, until Andrea says "isn't that plagiarism?" So why do we assume it's a myth anybody can add on to as if we're all bards or? And we know literature reflects a culture, that myth contains the truths of a particular culture, the truth values that culture or age espouses or wants to repeat. But Tennyson did not live in Arthur's time....seems like a lot of the Victorians wanted to think about those who did. Was the Victorian era so short of models or positive things? Help me History Majors, what was so hard about the Victorian era?
They do say in movies during the toughest times (think: Zeigfield's Follies or whoever did those Fred Astaire type wonderful glossy top hat things, and the times they were popular). People want to be entertained and to see high living when they are low apparently? But this is high living with a twist..she doesn't get the Knight in shining armor, he doesn't even see her until she's dead.
It does make you wonder if all those tales of women in towers were fairy tales in more than one way. So the "disenchantment" Halcyon spoke of seems to be everywhere in this thing.
So I think this question Pat asked is important: Whatever version(s) Tennyson knew, he made a drastic change by making her secluded. Why did he do this? It must be central to his purpose. What is he saying?
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Is that what it is, in the end? Disenchantment? What the deuce was Tennyson , the poet, trying to say with this poem? How ghastly. How awful.
'Like some bold seer in a trance, Seeing all his own mischance - With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot...and, Singing in her song she died.' Why 'his'?
She seemed to be happy in her tower, weaving her magic web with colors gay. Hear the song she sings so cheerly, little other care hath she, in her web she still delights. And then comes the whisper, an evil one, and she listens.
Joan, I can see why you might want to put a Buddhist spin on it, but I'm more inclined to see a Garden of Eden situation, with Lady Eve being tempted by the serpent. Or a Lady Lot looking back. But we're in legendary King Arthur country and we have to look to the Knights for help in rescuing ladies from towers, the reality of which was their own being. Poor devils...the knights...
'And they crossed themselves for fear, All the knights at Camelot.
Are they then all rehabilitated in Idylls of the King? We must read them. Why did I think of Lancelot as a fake? I'm not sure. He seemed all glitter and little substance, despite his ability in jousting. And since then I've also read in a biography of Tennyson that late in life a friend found him 'meditating a poem of Lancelot's conversion and death'. I wonder if the Lady will be found waiting for him in heaven? Tennyson would like to see us all there eventually. Only believe.
What an amazing poet we have in Tennyson. It was poems like this that got him the laureateship. He consoled the queen. He gave hope to many. He could bring tears to George Eliot's eyes. Someone used the word 'awful' in his presence. The poet objected. That word could only be used on grand, poetic or religious occasions. Tennyson suggested using 'bloody'. As a result we got that delightful English idiom: 'bloody awful'.
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The lurid history of Tennyson's family is interesting in itself, but some knowledge of it is also essential for understanding the recurrence in his poetry of themes of madness, murder, avarice, miserliness, social climbing, marriages arranged for profit instead of love, and estrangements between families and friends.
Alfred Tennyson was born in the depths of Lincolnshire, the fourth son of the twelve children of the rector of Somersby, George Clayton Tennyson, a cultivated but embittered clergyman who took out his disappointment on his wife Elizabeth and his brood of children—on at least one occasion threatening to kill Alfred's elder brother Frederick. The rector had been pushed into the church by his own father, also named George, a rich and ambitious country solicitor intent on founding a great family dynasty that would rise above their modest origins into a place among the English aristocracy. Old Mr. Tennyson, aware that his eldest son, the rector, was unpromising material for the family struggle upward, made his second son, his favorite child, his chief heir. Tennyson's father, who had a strong streak of mental instability, reacted to his virtual disinheritance by taking to drink and drugs, making the home atmosphere so sour that the family spoke of the "black blood" of the Tennysons.
Part of the family heritage was a strain of epilepsy, a disease then thought to be brought on by sexual excess and therefore shameful. One of Tennyson's brothers was confined to an insane asylum most of his life, another had recurrent bouts of addiction to drugs, a third had to be put into a mental home because of his alcoholism, another was intermittently confined and died relatively young. Of the rest of the eleven children who reached maturity, all had at least one severe mental breakdown. During the first half of his life Alfred thought that he had inherited epilepsy from his father and that it was responsible for the trances into which he occasionally fell until he was well over forty years old.
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More from the short biography in the Poetry Foundation. The trances are interesting to me. Also the following about his future wife. I am trying to find some correlation between the time he broke off with her and when he revised the ending of the Lady.
1832 The first version is published
1836 Tennyson is involved with Emily
1842 Second version is published
1849 Married Emily
Could it be he saw himself as Lancelot, not willing to be her knight in shining armour?
In 1836, however, at the age of twenty-seven, Tennyson became seriously involved with Emily Sellwood, who was four years younger than he. By the following year they considered themselves engaged. Emily had been a friend of Tennyson's sisters, and one of her own sisters married his next older (and favorite) brother, Charles. Most of the correspondence between Tennyson and Emily has been destroyed, but from what remains it is clear that she was very much in love with him, although he apparently withheld himself somewhat in spite of his affection for her. He was worried about not having enough money to marry, but he seems also to have been much concerned with the trances into which he was still falling, which he thought were connected with the epilepsy from which other members of the family suffered. To marry, he thought, would mean passing on the disease to any children he might father.
In the summer of 1840 Tennyson broke off all relations with Emily. She continued to think of herself as engaged to him, but he abandoned any hope of marriage, either then or in the future. To spare her further embarrassment, the story was put out that her father had forbidden their marriage because of Tennyson's poverty; this legend has been perpetuated in the present century.
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This was the first of several stays in "hydros" during the next five years. Copious applications of water inside and out, constant wrappings in cold, wet sheets, and enforced abstinence from tobacco and alcohol seemed to help him during each stay; but he would soon ruin any beneficial effects by his careless life once he had left the establishment, resuming his drinking and smoking to the despair of his friends.
Tennyson's last stay in a hydropathic hospital was in the summer of 1848, and though he was not completely cured of his illness, he was reassured about its nature. The doctor in charge apparently made a new diagnosis of his troubles, telling him that what he suffered from was not epilepsy but merely a form of gout that prefaced its attacks by a stimulation of the imagination that is very like the "aura" that often warns epileptics of the onset of a seizure. The trances that he had thought were mild epileptic fits were in fact only flashes of illumination over which he had no reason to worry. Had it been in Tennyson's nature to rejoice, he could have done so at this time, for there was no longer any reason for him to fear marriage, paternity, or the transmission of disease to his offspring. The habits of a lifetime, however, were too ingrained for him to shake them off at once.
Tennyson's luck at last seemed to be on the upturn. At the beginning of 1849 he received a large advance from his publisher with the idea that he would assemble and polish his "elegies" on Hallam, to be published as a whole poem. Before the year was over he had resumed communication with Emily Sellwood, and by the beginning of 1850 he was speaking confidently of marrying. On 1 June In Memoriam was published, and less than two weeks later he and Emily were married quietly at Shiplake Church. Improbable as it might seem for a man to whom little but bad fortune had come, both events were total successes.
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HALCYON: I had no idea; how interesting. I agree that it's important to know this. We are seeing, perhaps, a bit of the world of his trances?
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Halcyon- you have given us some very sound research, thank you for that information. Did he and Emily ever have children? That was quite an interesting diagnosis of Gout rather than epilepsy. I tend to disagree with that diagnosis of gout but what ever makes life more bearable--- so be it! What a horrid family tree for him to a part of.
Glory be- I am more confused now than I was initially. Asked by Ginny to pick one word, I struggled between REFLECTION and/ or REFLECTIVE, each meaning something quite different and yet both terms applicable to our Lady. She observes her existence thru reflection, a mirror image of reality. She must be engulfed with meditation, reflecting on her confinement and what life could be embraced outside these walls. To me it would seem like perpetual boredom, weaving in a fortified castle with only a cracked mirror to focus her attention & witness life beyond the impregnable castle walls. Impregnable?. Hmm interesting concept too.
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http://www.maryjones.us/jce/shalott.html
There are paintings and pictures here.
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Wow Halcyon you sure proved what I love most about discussing a piece of literature with Senior Learn - we really learn things
OK I am going to piggy back on your research that shows a family riddled with illness and societies rational for what scientifically or medically could not be explained or brought back to health at the time.
Someone in an earlier post brought up that the newer version of the poem used the word 'fear' when the town folks saw the dead lady - something triggered - why would folks be fearful - I remember small communities in the Appalachians when I lived all those years in Kentucky and working with Barea Collage and the Girl Scouts we were winterizing one room school houses and bringing inoculation shots to isolated communities. For the most part we were some of the first outside folks they had ever seen - this was back in the very late 50s and the early 60s when roads were still often tracks that literally if the creek was low only then could we get to the other side of a hollow. And yes, we were greeted with great wariness and once even had the men from a community meet us with shotguns raised. Lots of precious stories as well during that time but onward to this poem.
And so that prompted me to realize there is the fear of a stranger or outsider however, Camelot with all these folks mentioned appears to be a much larger community than some of the isolated hamlets - and it hit - even when I was a kid, before penicillin, being sick or a parent trying to nurse a child was a frightening trauma - I can still feel the fear from my Mother especially when I contracted Scarlet Fever and our home was quarantined and then later I was among the many who succumbed to TB in the TB epidemic of the late 30s.
OK so fear of a stranger and fear the "Dead" stranger died from an illness they would bring to Camelot - but more - remember how a year after 9/11 we were most concerned with safety and never talked about our fear but only the desire for safety - then about 10 years later we had the ability to start looking at just how we reacted and only this year after we saw France react differently did we start to feel and talk more like those on flight 93 who brought down the plan rather than as TV witnesses to the twin tower horror.
Putting all that together - it was a snap kind of thinking rather than all this explanation anyhow - I thought fear of disease and sure enough the year before the first version of the poem was written there was a horrific Cholera epidemic in Britain in 1832, with a death toll of 55,000 AND since the story is his viewpoint of Camelot, and the myth is placed in time before the dates we associate with the Black Plague - well no... it seems that half of Europe died (1/2 would you believe) during the Plague of Justinian which was later understood to be the bubonic plague - all this taking place between the years 500 and 750.
Hahaha all that to better explain the change in the second version of the poem using the word 'fear'. However, it does put that scene in context and with Tennyson's family history of illness I can see him picking up on the fear that caused folks to name any rational the cause of an illness they had no clue how to handle or cure.
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Alf I love the way you say this - "To me it would seem like perpetual boredom, weaving in a fortified castle with only a cracked mirror to focus her attention & witness life beyond the impregnable castle walls. Impregnable?"
Because that was another thought and you said it - impregnable - when the mirror cracks and she hears her curse that will be her death the thought occurred, for a women even in Victorian times, after marriage there were some freedoms but essentially there is the death of her as an individual - she is the property of the man she marries and as a 'good' wife she is to please him regardless of her own feelings. She also risks her life when she bears children and so I keep coming back to this poem as being symbolic - the other aspect is regardless now how we think today of a young man as Lancelot is described he was an Icon of honor, gallantry and courtly love -
Another side bar - in The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus we learn that this new concept of intimacy with love was expressed only between a young man, as we would call today a rake - to an older married lady. The more the male lover went through hoops, starving themselves among other things, the more they were showing their love to the lady with their dalliances somehow just missing the hammer of her ruined reputation. Any children conceived were quickly covered by a renewed association by the lady with her husband or to the nunnery she did go.
We also have Tennyson using the color yellow several times in the poem and in heraldry, yellow indicates honor and loyalty - and interesting a yellow cross indicated the Black Plague.
And so yes, I can really go with Alf suggesting that the lady's natural desire to become impregnated was stronger than the comfort of the isolated weaving room or the whispers of a curse and seeing the knight of honor and loyalty cracking her mirror would send today many teenage girls out the window to a nearby vehicle to places unknown.
OH yes and the way Lancelot is presented is "A bow-shot from her bower-eaves" - Now how many cupid arrows have we seen over the years on Valentine cards...
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ALF You asked if they had children.
The new Mrs. Tennyson was thirty-seven years old and in delicate health, but she was a woman of iron determination; she took over the running of the externals of her husband's life, freeing him from the practical details at which he was so inept. Her taste was conventional, and she may have curbed his religious questioning, his mild bohemianism, and the exuberance and experimentation of his poetry, but she also brought a kind of peace to his life without which he would not have been able to write at all. There is some evidence that Tennyson occasionally chafed at the responsibilities of marriage and paternity and at the loss of the vagrant freedom he had known, but there is nothing to indicate that he ever regretted his choice. It was probably not a particularly passionate marriage, but it was full of tenderness and affection. Three sons were born, of whom two, Hallam and Lionel, survived.
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I thought this was interesting as well, Tennyson's obsession with Arthur and Camelot.
Idylls of the King was published in 1859; it contained only four ("Enid," "Vivien," "Elaine," and "Guinevere") of the eventual twelve idylls. The matter of Arthur and Camelot had obsessed Tennyson since boyhood, and over the years it became a receptacle into which he poured his deepening feelings of the desecration of decency and of ancient English ideals by the gradual corruption of accepted morality. The decay of the Round Table came increasingly to seem to him an apt symbol of the decay of nineteenth-century England. It was no accident that the first full-length idyll had been "Morte d'Arthur," which ultimately became--with small additions--the final idyll in the completed cycle. It had been written at the time of the death of Arthur Hallam, who seemed to Tennyson "Ideal manhood closed in real man," as he wrote of King Arthur; no doubt both Hallam's character and Tennyson's grief at his death lent color to the entire poem.
Like The Princess, In Memoriam , and Maud, the idylls were an assembly of poetry composed over a long time--in this case nearly half a century in all, for they were not finished until 1874 and were not all published until 1885. Taken collectively, they certainly constitute Tennyson's most ambitious poem, but not all critics would agree that the poem's success is equal to its intentions.
For a modern reader, long accustomed to the Arthurian legend by plays, musicals, films, and popular books, it is hard to realize that the story was relatively unfamiliar when Tennyson wrote. He worked hard at his preparation, reading most of the available sources, going to Wales and the west country of England to see the actual places connected with Arthur, and even learning sufficient Welsh to read some of the original documents. "There is no grander subject in the world," he wrote, and he meant his state of readiness to be equal to the loftiness of his themes, which explains in part why it took him so long to write the entire poem.
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Barb The idea of fear of an unknown disease seems very credible especially with his own unknown disease. So much to think about.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/alfred-tennyson
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Oh MAN! Can all this great stuff be here in one place?
Jonathan says we need to discuss the Idylls of the King, I totally agree. Ever since Judi Dench recited those dramatic lines in Skyfall, I have been totally hooked on it:
and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Oh yes, we must read the Idylls, another very short poem. Another classical illusion...I wish I could write as well as Tennyson, it takes me pages to express the same idea he can with only a couple of words.
But now Halcyon here has blown me away with her research.
What, seizures? GOUT? Does GOUT cause seizures? Or spells? What kind of spells? I know we have at least two nurses in this group, I never heard of that.
I have thought about this ever since Halcyon put it in here, two more long drives, it's such a pleasure to contemplate and now I have a theory...which a couple of you have punctured with your close and astute readings of the poem, but let me see if I can make it fit..
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OK here's the deal. We're a book club. We want to talk about the ideas in a book, and in this case, this short little poem. We want to try to understand it, we're still on the plot part, what's happening and why. We're adding background which is illuminating it considerably. Still to come is the form, the arrangement of stanzas the rhyme scheme and how it points to the theme, if it does, or not.
But we need to know what it SAYS first. What it's really saying. We need to get the "one words" up, they are very telling.
Here's the thing about Lit Crit: Literary Criticism.
You are entitled to your theory, no matter what it IS, you are entitled to it so long as you can prove it by what the work of literature says.
You have to be able to show that it fits.
I've got a new theory, it's WAY out there, hold on to your hats. But a couple of you, particularly Jonathan, here, have sort of punched a hole in one of my balloons. That bit about 'Like some bold seer in a trance, Seeing all his own mischance - With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot...and, Singing in her song she died.' Why 'his'?
Oh dear. That's the problem with close reading, I did not see that. I was bouncing along on the sing song lines which I love and never saw that one coming.
OH dear. Now how can I fit that into my theory? That may be more like Cinderella's sisters trying to fit their feet into a shoe.
But first, the imortant things;
Bluebird thank you for that lovely link!
Barbara's got it here: Hahaha all that to better explain the change in the second version of the poem using the word 'fear'. However, it does put that scene in context and with Tennyson's family history of illness I can see him picking up on the fear that caused folks to name any rational the cause of an illness they had no clue how to handle or cure.
There it is. Disease. There she lies dead. Am I going to catch it? Don't get too close, you might get it. Fear. I may change my one word here in a minute. And Tennyson should know, because he's got it, too. The fear, and the disease or so he thinks.
The minute I saw Halcyon's facts I knew the answer to Pat's question why the solitude, that's new in this version, why, she asked?
The question Andrea asked about children. Am I right that Emily was 37 years old when they married and still managed to have two children? I thought that was 2015 miracles...interesting.
Theory coming up!!
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OK so here's my own theory.
I need to be able to reconcile it with every single line of the poem. This may be problematic, but here goes.
The Lady of Shalott is Tennyson himself. Note the dates:
1832 The first version is published
1836 Tennyson is involved with Emily
1842 Second version is published
1849 Married Emily
You can see it clearly here. He's got this....er...curse of a disease, he goes into these...trances..he thinks he's epileptic...is he? Who knows? He feels he can't marry he can barely get about in public, he's got this problem...he can't pass it on to a new generation (I guess abstinence never occurred to him) he feels doomed by this curse of his disease but later by a whisper of a curse, isn't that interesting.
WHEN (this is vital for my theory) did the doctor say oh no, it's just gout? GOUT?
So he IS the Lady in the Tower. He's using the metaphor of Camelot, and Lancelot, the two supposedly most pure (?) images of Chivalry. Something the Victorians were very familiar with but his has a twist. She's working away just like he did but she can't partake of life like he can't because she's cursed. Or wait, maybe it's not a curse..a whisper of a curse, we really need to know when the doctor told him this news..and the poem changes...are they related?
But he can't stand it. He must take a chance,
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
See it's not just Lancelot, it's life itself. He's lonely. He wants to partake of all the glittery stuff that everybody else has.
And here the poem is quite interesting. There are 4, count 'em, 4 paragraphs of description here after the two lovers. Here comes Lancelot. He's shining, he's jingling, he's singing, he is the very representation of LIFE, the life that despite the fact she is happy in the bower with her creativity, she longs for but fears (because of HIS curse of trances) he can never have but....
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 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.
Is he saying here (this is before he married) that he dare not try, because if he DID he would bring doom?
I think he is. He wrote the poem apparently before the doctor lifted the curse of Epilepsy.. Everything in my theory hinges on the doctor.
This is my little theory. It may not hold up. I need to go back and take every line and see if it fits. It may not.
The isolation does, the curse does, the metaphor does....It's not the same as the one his son put forward, but I really do think this is what it IS. I think his son is correct that the Lady is Tennyson, not so much as Artiste and Work, but as the person.
He's used the motif of Camelot and he's put himself (The Lady) in an ivory tower from fear and he can explain it so well because he's living it when he wrote it. Poor miserable man. That's why Lancelot is different at the end of the 2nd version: there's hope after all. But he/she dies in the poem (he'd given up) before in real life he found the world did not end when he took the chance, note the dates again....perhaps a third revision would have cleared up the issue. How clever of him to use the Camelot, maid in a boat image, nobody would ever dream it was he.
Now THAT'S my theory and so far it fits, except for that pesky line of Jonathan's, what do you think? Does it fit with yours or is it way off the beam?
One of Lancelot's jingling bells for your thoughts.
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Ginny
The year is 1848. See Post 100, second paragraph in third quote.
Aside: I have been reading about the Ojibwa Indians and in their belief system fear is on the opposite side of the coin from love. We have two wolves battling in us, fear and love, and the winner is the one we feed the most.
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Crap!! hahaha
I forgot the date when I saw the astounding diagnosis. Phooey!
Does that dissolve my theory? I must adjust. Bring forth the shoe horn for Drusilla and I'll try again. Maybe it can still fit.
Thank you!
PS: Deep thinking from the Ojibwa!! Buddhism and the Ojibwa, nothing like a good poem to set off inquiry!~
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Good grief don't you just hate it when you write out a post and hit something so that you loose the entire post - sheesh - rather than attempt a reconstruction let me just say I am loving how we are each enjoying this poem and dwelling in it to come to a greater understanding of not only the poem but of the poet and ourselves - what we value and how we look at life's events.
Going to switch to another direction - when I picked up on the multiple use of the color yellow I saw first a red cape then on and on just about every color of the rainbow is included in this work. Symbolism along with analogy and metaphors, repetition, among other poetic devices are so important and so using my trusty Dictionaries of symbolism, one by Hans Biedermann, another by J.C. Cooper ( I like this one a lot since it includes the symbolic meanings within various cultures, religions and historical associations) and finally a fairly new one that is Nature and Its Symbols by Lucia Impelluso. So this is what I found - I see this exercise as helping us get more meaning from the poem.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
Four and gray are repeated - repetition is a hint to readers - pay attention - what confused me is I thought this was describing the fortress at Camelot but that is the preceding sentence so, is this describing where the lady of Shalott is living? And if so is her house so to speak, this four gray walls and tower also her self - as is said, we are an exterior house holding a spiritual being?
"Numbers are considered the key to the harmonic laws of the cosmos, and thus symbols of divine order." The number four is the first solid number as opposed to circular or dynamic - four represents wholeness, solidarity, completion, the Earth, order, emblematic of the old Testament, winds for which our spirit is to come and for Christians the attempt to bring the feminine into the masculine adding the Virgin Mary to the Trinity.
Searching for a way to organize the world's multiplicity the ancients assigned color symbolism that was followed by Heraldry linking meaning to color and introducing color associations with metal.
Gray; mourning, depression, humility [sounds like Lancelot in his song C'est Moi ;) ] and get this - for Christians - death of the body and immortality of the soul.
In part I the only other color mentioned is only mentioned the one time - willows whiten however, rather than a color my take is it is a verb or at the least an adverb describing an action. Also the white as a color is used later in the poem.
And so is the symbolic meaning attempting to help us see the lady, while in her tower, as in a cocoon almost like a butterfly that will break free.
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And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
The color red is not as strong an influence as four and gray that were repeated next to each other - interesting both uses of red is on the youth - a girl and a page - Red; fire, sun, love, joy, passion, energy, the bridal torch, a devout heart. In Celtic tradition is means the red horse of disaster. hmmm
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
Again the color not as strong but two by two - ok we need to consider the number two as significant and we also had the girl and the page that represents another form of two.
Two; duality, diversity, conflict, the static condition, rooted, balance, the duel nature of man, desire, the first number from the unity of one therefore, symbolizes sin, corruptibility.
Blue; truth, intellect, revelation, loyalty, chastity, piety, peace, infinite space, heaven, eternity, faith, the ability to master one's drive. This last one could be why a blue plume was typical in the knight's helmets.
Lots of the use of color in part III - need to stop now and will get them a bit later today...
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I'm listening to not just Tennyson but to each one of you as you describe your thoughts. Oh my how I have missed this in my life, you are all a font of knowledge, passion and love for the written word. Where else could we go to enjoy one another's thoughts, concepts and approaches to a poem such as this one, I ask! I am loving this and hope I don't miss anyone because I read and REREAD each of your posts .
Barb Says but essentially there is the death of her as an individual - she is the property of the man she marries and as a 'good' wife she is to please him regardless of her own feelings. She also risks her life when she bears children and so I keep coming back to this poem as being symbolic -
It never occurred to me until I found myself musing over the impregnable walls that this IS symbolic. Ok she thinks, "let me out of here " ( I still question who's imprisioning her)
to see the big wide world. What the hey?... What's the worst that can befall me?
Well we have that answer and when her body was found why couldn't it have just been with fear of the unknown? Who is this Lady of Shallot? Poisoned & then put into the boat to drift away from the possible culprit?? The plague? A woman murdered mysteriously would send chills up my spine?
Halcyon- Interesting that they had 3 sons and none were prone to epilepsy.
NO Ginny this was not gout. Gout does not, nor has it ever manifested itself with an aura and seizures- grand or petit mal. The doctor was like many in those day, he had no true knowledge and "winged" it. Tennyson was beside himself; despondent, depressed and in fear of passing on this gene. Some of his family members also suffered so his fear was a reality. I can just see the doc saying, " not to worry son, it's just the gout, come back and we' ll try some other form of treatment."
If it did nothing else, at least it freed the poor guy. He was able to abandon his fear and exempt himself from the torment of harbouring this affliction. The doctors an ass BUT it helped Tennyson to move on in his life redeemed from this affliction! (Or so he thought)
Ginny really... Abstinence?. LOL I NEARLY FELL OFF MY CHAIR considering this poor guy, full of love and young lust practicing abstinence .
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Ginny Perhaps if you revise your theory a bit, Tennyson, like the Ojibwa wolves, has come to see his internal battle and he is both the Lady and Lancelot. Then the date of the doc's diagnosis wouldn't matter.
1842
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.
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1832
And down the river's dim expanse
With a steady, stony glance
Beholding all her own mischance
Mute, with a glassy countenance
She looked down to Camelot
It was the closing of the day,
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...
Has anyone else noticed this...
1842
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.
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...
1842
As he rode down from Camelot:
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Does it make a difference if he's coming or going?
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Halcyon - the difference is seldom as in literature - in poetry the intricacies of coming or going is more the way it rolls the words on your tongue making a line reflect many associations - each line or phrase in poetry is trying to multi-task allowing the reader to see several associations - the other aspect of writing poetry is to pare down the words so that there are not many prepositions or useless adjectives and adverbs. Following your observation here is another example...
The early version says -
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, came from Camelot.
The later version -
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot: notice the colon, so the remaining words are part of this vision nugget where as the early version stopped with Camelot. In the later version 'went' rather than a pure action word 'went' becomes like an association - e.g. the red socks went with Billy's pile of socks while the blue socks went with Betsy's pile.
She is weaving the delights she sees in her mirror and certain night-time happenings like knights in plumes, lights and plume are like a funeral - which can be associated in several ways - as a procession of people over time and since the people pass in the past their passing (ahum sounds like a riddle) anyhow, their passing was in the past therefore, called a funeral or, as the majesty of a particular funeral procession with knights in plumed armor, plumed livery, torchlights and music. If Tennyson is being true to the time in history associated with Lancelot then music would not be gay if there were present knights in plume. Tennyson then goes on to give the opposite of this somber night time procession to a lightness and gaiety of two young lovers having wed - In his second version he connects both with the plumes, lights and music that went with Camelot.
This says to me, in Camelot there is pomp and ceremony, mourning of the dead as well as, a law that unites couples, a place where young love declares their devotion, where there is music, torchlight and probably firelight and where knights are not in battle but are dressed in parade state armor with plumes on their helmet that announces their taken chivalrous vows.
As to the line in part III - 'As he rode down from Camelot.' versus 'As he rode down to Camelot.' listen - hear how the word 'from' softens the phrase in the first version where as, 'to' makes the word 'down' come down with emphasis like a conductors stick rather than, a sideway's stroke in the air of a conductors stick for the entire phrase when the word 'from' was chosen.
Don't you just love this stuff - poetry has so many nooks and crannies of beauty - it is like singing, adjusting the story to the melody.
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I As to the line in part III - 'As he rode down from Camelot.' versus 'As he rode down to Camelot.' listen - hear how the word 'from' softens the phrase in the first version where as, 'to' makes the word 'down' come down with emphasis like a conductors stick rather than, a sideway's stroke in the air of a conductors stick for the entire phrase when the word 'from' was chosen.
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Barb Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge. I shall be listening as well as reading from now on, at least trying. love how you worded your explanation. I can visualize it....t step back. You are too harsh. Fun, this poetry.
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I'm listening to not just Tennyson but to each one of you as you describe your thoughts. Oh my how I have missed this in my life, you are all a font of knowledge, passion and love for the written word. Where else could we go to enjoy one another's thoughts, concepts and approaches to a poem such as this one, I ask!
YES, Alf. That's what we're about here. With me too, I don't have much chance for this kind of conversation, except I can always call up JoanK and talk to her, if I can catch her. This is an extreme case; We're really milking the poem for everything it's got, and no doubt an English Lit professor would shoot down half our theories, but it's such fun.
Gout--yes, it didn't explain his symptoms any more than epilepsy is caused by excess sexual activity. People then were at the mercy of the incomplete medical knowledge of the time, and we can be glad that Tennyson got a wrong diagnosis that helped him rather than hurt him.
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To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
I've always loved this quote, but it's not from Idylls of the King, it's from Ulysses. Long after he returns home from the Odyssey, he thinks about a final adventure:
".....Come, my friends,
'Tis not to late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive,to seek, to find, and not to yield."
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The Book Club Online is the oldest book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone. We offer cordial discussions of one book a month, 24/7 and enjoy the company of readers from all over the world. Everyone is welcome.
February Book Club Online:
The Lady of Shalott
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892 )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Ladywaterhousehalfsickofshadows.jpg)
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, “I am half-sick of shadows” (1916)
Our Readers Respond to the Question, What's This Poem About in One Word:
---shattering of self-delusions and its possible consequences (Frybabe)
--- disenchantment (Halcyon)
---romantic (nlhome)
---reflection/ reflective: Andrea (ALF)
---fear (ginny)
---change (Barb)
---whodunit? (Jonathan)
---isolation (Pat H.)
DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:
February 9-28
Interesting Links: :
~ Enjoy this haunting rendition of the poem in ballad form by Loreen McKenna with many beautiful illustrations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0rVNQw1DQM)
~A comparison of editions: 1833 and 1842 by The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/shalcomb.htm)
~ Elaine of Astolat links (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/elanmenu.htm)
Elaine of Astolat is the maiden who dies of unrequited love for Lancelot and floats in a barge to Camelot with a letter for Lancelot clutched in her lifeless hand. She appears in Malory and in Tennyson's idyll of "Lancelot and Elaine." The figure of Elaine in the barge became one of the most popular Victorian images.
~ SC Edu Library Online Text (http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/tenn/shalott.html)
~ A wonderful page on the Lady by a pathologist with a very clever way of comparing the editions. (http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm)
~The Winged Horse: Tennyson, submitted by Jonathan and Frybabe. (https://archive.org/stream/wingedhorsestory00jose#page/302/mode/2up/search/303)
~Schmoop: A discussion of the rhyme scheme and meter of the Lady (http://www.shmoop.com/lady-of-shalott/rhyme-form-meter.html)
Discussion Leader: ginny (gvinesc@gmail.com )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Beyondbattlemet.jpg)
And there are knights in shining armor, too!! How up ARE you on your knights and armor? Take This delightful quiz from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/interactives/adults-teachers/beyond-battle) and enjoy finding out!
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Shriek!!! hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa OH man, I thought Ulysses WAS the King. I thought the thing was in parts and Ulysses was one part! Obviously have never understood that. So the Idylls are about Arthur apparently. hahahaaa I love it.
Am I or am I not out of my field? hahahaa Man oh man, well one can't say one is not learning things in here. Fabulous. Thank you for that. I really should have looked it up.
Jonathan, can we read Ulysses then? I do know something of Odysseus hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Well I agree we're having fun, anyway, or I am. Totally unabashed and actually more determined than ever to make my theory fit. Because it really makes sense.
Andrea, I love what you said and you're right.
Barbara, love the colors, I actually love the way the thing is introduced, the stanzas, and who they relate to, but this that Halcyon has put in here is shocking.
Does it mean anything to anybody else?
I had NOT noticed the change in the pronoun and now copying from Halcyon rather than trusting to memory hahahaa
1832
And down the river's dim expanse
With a steady, stony glance
Beholding all her own mischance
Mute, with a glassy countenance
She looked down to Camelot
1842
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.
Oh wow, look at that, I had not noticed that change. So originally it IS her own mischance.. and originally she had a stony glance, but in the second one we've got a simile: like a seer in a trance and it's his own mischance... Can that be a reference to Tennyson himself?
Whoever it IS, it's not the Lady's mischance in the final version. She's not seeing her own mischance.
What does "mischance" mean in this context?
I'm glad I looked back in here tonight. I needed that laugh. Just love it. hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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Ginny what do you think, I am re-reading and re-reading - oh dear it can take the magic away but still, onward, I am getting from this second version of 1842, the word 'Like' suggesting to me the picture of a bold seer in a trance seeing his mischance is describing the river that has a glassy countenance - and since we call rivers 'she' I am thinking this whole bit is telling us the river is similar to - maybe the mirror?? do you think?? Unless we see this stanza as a continuation of the preceding that talked about the boat and the boat is the she but then, a stanza is usually a new thought. hmm - see what y'all think.
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.
Again, we can each have an association that would give us a personal impact from this poem - for this exploration of the poem, if the river is similar to the mirror with its glassy countenance - a river flowing while having a glassy countenance suggests a still barely moving river - not too far from you neck of the woods Ginny, I spent time the holiday visit walking with my grands along the Green River and where the rapids flow a powerful push of water, the water meets a stillness in the river that appears glassy before the surface shows a small amount of movement, slowly moving reflecting sky and shoreline. On the Green the next set of rapids breaks that stillness where as the river in our poem does not speak of rapids, only the glassy countenance.
Ok the River of Paradise flows from four directions, the source is usually a spring or in some cultures from the Tree of Life - we also have the River of Life and Death which is a river flowing upstream to its pristine source - while the mirror is called the "Mirror of the Universe" which is the reflection of the supernatural and divine intelligence in addition to, the reflection of the temporal world and man's knowledge of himself and, if a mirror is spotless it is called the "Mirror of Justice."
Hmm we do have a 'mirror clear' - but OK the glassy river and clear mirror are not twins of the same thought are they - the river seems to have an even more spiritual philosophy when depicted in art where as, the mirror is just what it is, a reflection of man.
Is she taking a spiritual journey do you think??!!?? - Leaving her cocoon where she weaves the web that is the story of man and takes to the river at night - hmm the Dark Night of the Soul - the more you read it sounds like she died of exposure - hypothermia
"In the stormy east-wind straining," - the Bible suggests "An east wind will come, The wind of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; And his fountain will become dry And his spring will be dried up; It will plunder his treasury of every precious article."
Wow the way Lancelot is depicted he sure is a shiny, glittery and bejeweled spectacle. Is the ending where he says 'she has a lovely face and God give her grace' plundering from him a concern for another rather than he continuing being the razzle dazzle c'est moi?
On to her hypothermia...
"The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining"
So she takes off on a rainy night with the wind blowing,
"robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right"
Does not sound like warm clothing to me if it can fly in the east wind and there is no talk of this boat having any shelter - she sings carols as the boat slowly floats down to Camelot - "Till her blood was frozen slowly," - OK those witnessing her arrival in death have no idea how she died only that there is this strange women, not dressed for a rainy windy night, in a shallow boat, dead upon arrival.
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Lately I find myself thinking I should get a little poetry into my life. And I think The Lady will do it. As well as the wonderful company I find myself in with all of you.
It seems passing strange, too, that I came into posession of Tennyson's Idylls of the King just a few weeks ago. I found it among my brother's things after he passed away, at ninety, a few days before Christmas. It has 1922 on the title page and his signature is in the handwriting of a teenager. His funeral we celebrated on Christmas Eve and he was laid to rest with several carols, just as he would have wanted. Death came as a friend.
Along with the Idylls, among his things was another delightful book published in 1927, The Winged Horse: The Story of the Poets and Their Poetry. I can't resist quoting from the chapter on Tennyson, something which, I think, adds strength to the serious argument Ginny makes in her post.
'(Tennyson)...had a natural shrinking away from the real world toward his dream world. He was doubtful of life. He was afraid that love might sink into passion, adventure turn into folly, liberty become license. So, like his Lady of Shallot, he watched the reflection of a life he did not share or in many ways even watch attentively, and he wrote of the things that did not disturb him - the pure Sir Galahad, the pale, rapt St. Agnes, the miller's daughter, the May Queen. He wrote also of patriotism, and...England...listened to this music of quiet country life, of dewy trees and gentle sadness anf faithful love, and was charmed by it. This sad sweet poetry, as well as the stirring Ulysses and the splendid Morte Arthur, was responsible for a growing popularity that now came to Tennyson'
But a mid-life crisis also came into his life. What else could have him exclaiming, after marrying Emily Sellwood in 1850, at the age of 41: 'The peace of God entered my soul, when I wedded her at the altar.' (The Winged Horse, page 312)
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And then the lighthearted Lancelot, singing 'tirra lirra' as he 'flashed into the crystal mirror.' Did he see all the white lilies set off by all the grey walls and wonder about them? Did they have meaning for him?
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PatH, the passage you quoted from Ulysses is begging to be printed out beneath a picture of the cosmos. It reaches far beyond the earth in its scope.
Jonathan, et.al., I found The Winged Horse: The Story of the Poets and Their Poetry on archive.org. https://archive.org/details/wingedhorsestory00jose Unfortunately, it gave me an error message when I tried to download it for my Kindle, but I did bookmark it. My favorite site, Project Gutenberg, does not seem to have it. I, too, have been paying a little more attention to poetry lately.
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Oh Jonathan, what a treasure of a book. And my sympathy to you in the death of your brother, you are a long lived family. And I have to say that you are one of the most literate families I have ever encountered. Every time we have a book discussion, here you are saying I found on my shelves XXX and it's some seminal, very old book right to the point.
(http://seniorlearn.org/latin/graphics/Tennyson.jpg) And what a treasure this one is!! Thank you for that link Frybabe, it opens nicely online and one can turn the pages as if it were a book, here's the link to page 303 the Tennyson chapter and you'll all notice the illustration has a boat (note the glassy water) in the background: you just click the right side of the screen and the page turns. A wonderful afternoon of reading awaits.
https://archive.org/stream/wingedhorsestory00jose#page/302/mode/2up/search/303
Of course we must do the Idlylls now, but Ulysses is also so short perhaps we could throw it in, too? Sort of a Tennyson discussion? I really love the idea. I'm up for July if anyone else is?
Anybody who knows me knows that I favor long illustrative art filled headings. A long time ago when we were starting out I remember arguing for them and one of our group saying let's let our words be the illustration and in THIS discussion they are. The words are so rich, they are better almost. One can see the illustrations in the lovely links Bluebird has posted and in the song in the heading, she's got almost every illustration known to man except possibly the Howard Pyle which I'm about to bring here.
Frybabe, you are amazing finding all these things, can you find "The Life of the Life," which the pathguy says Tennyson wrote and it's a companion to the poem?
Like Pat I am trying not to read the Path guy with whom I sort of disagree on some things, (apparently a lot of things), but I need some of his info, too, so am reading him with half an eye.
That quote is right on it, Jonathan! Thank you. I keep thinking of Stephen King. He says he writes to exorcise his own demons. He says it is better than paying a psychiatrist. I think a lot of poets did that, and I think you can see the man in this one.
Barbara! I think you've got it!! Well done, I never considered that, at all: Is she taking a spiritual journey do you think??!!?? - Leaving her cocoon where she weaves the web that is the story of man and takes to the river at night - hmm the Dark Night of the Soul - the more you read it sounds like she died of exposure - hypothermia! and again we'll have to research but frozen!!
She died of hypothermia!! - "Till her blood was frozen slowly," They are reaping, so it has to be toward the fall. I bet if some of us were gardeners, we could identify the time of year by the very flowers you talked about.
I do know that Julius Caesar was anxious to return to the Continent and he was around London and St. Albans at the time, because of the weather in Britain and it was late in the fall. We've got some Latin students in the UK, I think I will inquire of them what temps there might be in Tintagel in the fall? Why not?
I've been to Tintagel, it's wild and cold even in the summer, what must it be in the late fall? But the question is, despite this: "Till her blood was frozen slowly," -
There it is. IS that only a poetic explanation or is that exactly what happened?
When I read "countenance," I thought it was her face. I thought she (Tennyson) was in one of his trances again....but it COULD be the water, that peculiar still water they have in the UK, and then there's the seer. Oh I had not thought of the glassy countenance as the river NOR as the mirror, wow. That is going to take some time to take in.... Did she exchange one mirror for another?
Lot of reflective images here. This thing is a lot more deep than I thought.
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.
The river is like a seer in a trance seeing all his own mischance. The pathguy defines mischance as "Mischance: Bad luck (i.e., Tennyson's psychic foresees his own disaster)"
What does he mean there? What's the message here? HIS own disaster, but we're not talking about the "seer in his trance," who has also got to be Tennyson, we're talking about her? HE is the one who espouses (because Tennyson's own son said so) the Lady is the Artist and the weaving is the artist's (Tennyson's) work and it's about dedicating yourself to your art, that struggle between the creative and the real world...
But I think it's about something else. I do agree the Lady is Tennyson. I don't think his work is what he's worrying over.
I need to work on what Halcyon said here: Ginny Perhaps if you revise your theory a bit, Tennyson, like the Ojibwa wolves, has come to see his internal battle and he is both the Lady and Lancelot. Then the date of the doc's diagnosis wouldn't matter
He's got to be "the seer" too, don't you think? He's the entire poem, the two halves of the Ojibwa wolves? (Why are you reading about the Ojibwa?)
I never have seen Lancelot as any part of this, what do you all think about Lancelot now? Do you still blame him? I fail to see, I really do, how this can be a poem about Unrequited Love, unless the love is one of life. I don't see how Lancelot can be held for blame here, do you?
(I'm changing my one word to "Fear.") Anybody else want to change their word? UP they go today in the heading.
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Well, Ginny, you really gave me a research task. I cannot locate any poem by Tennyson by the title "Life of the Life". I did find this on Google
https://books.google.com/books?id=IpBRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=Tennyson+%22Life+of+the+Life%22&source=bl&ots=LFopeISMCV&sig=HUilFtpgGzOKz6wIo-LZ0xQwgUw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IJHfVJ3vOoqyggSp4IOoBg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Tennyson%20%22Life%20of%20the%20Life%22&f=false
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Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
a fragment
First published in 1842. Not altered since 1853.
See for what may have given the hint for this fragment Morte D'Arthur, bk. xix., ch. i., and bk. xx., ch. i., and cf. Coming of Arthur:
And Launcelot pass'd away among the flowers,
For then was latter April, and return'd
Among the flowers in May with Guinevere.
Like souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.
In crystal vapour everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost elm-tree 1 gather'd green
From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song:
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong:
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,
Above the teeming ground.
Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.
She seem'd a part of joyous Spring:
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.
Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt 2 with violet
Her cream-white mule his pastern set:
And fleeter now 3 she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.
As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd
The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
I fail to see how the unpublished fragment (previous post) would have fit in this poem. It is in first person voice, while this poem is not. Maybe he changed the voice so in so doing dropped it. Speculation!
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You are amazing, Frybabe, finding a link to The Winged Horse so quickly. It's the best quick tour of the world of poetry that I have ever seen.
But I'm in a hurry. I just want to thank Halcyon for the 'partyfoundation' link. At the very bottom, in the reading list, I found the Tennyson biography by John Batchelor, To Strive, To Seek, To Find. My library branch just called to say it's waiting for me.
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He did include the words from his great sage poetic giant Shakespeare in this poem
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge,
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.
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I apologize in advance for these long posts. I know sometimes people break their own long posts down into one or two sentences and then post 10 of them but I have to give you the benefit of the doubt, if you have the attention span to read something and comment on it, I have to assume you have the attention span to read one of my long posts. Besides, I'm lazy . hahahaa
I agree with ALF (Andrea) it's such a pleasure to come in here and read and reread your thoughts. Always something new and bright and jingling just like Lancelot. Something about those bells on the bridle really gets to me, what a romantic romantic image. What could be more romantic than a horse drawn sleigh in the snow with the bells, unless it's a knight in shining armor singing. That tirrra lirra, Barbara noticed, does it have some meaning I don't know of? I mean I have never heard anybody sing tirra lirra, although wasn't there an Irish song of our youth similar to it, an Irish Lullaby?
What a revelation Jonathan's brother's Winged Horse: The Story of the Poets and Their Poetry has been. Note however what is left out? Nothing on the trances or gout. Nothing on the alcoholism the Spark Notes cites (see below).
I am extremely interested to hear what Jonathan finds in his new find, Tennyson biography by John Batchelor, To Strive, To Seek, To Find.
In the Winged Horse, however is another telling paragraph I've put here:
(http://seniorlearn.org/latin/graphics/tlife.jpg)
It appears from this fragment that it was Tennyson himself who was responsible for the Victorian's obsession with Arthur, is that the way you read this? HE was the one who took it on and made it the staple of Victorian interest.
I wonder why? What was it about the Victorians which made them long for the stories of Camelot? Was it like our Downton Abbey? I don't know much about the Victorians, but I am learning from your posts.
Our Man in Britain has come through with a site for weather in the UK showing Tintagel, which he says is "a very rugged place at the best of times." It is showing for today lows in the 30's. But I cannot make any of the weather sites show it for September (I figure if they are reaping barley or rye it has to be September or October, but...wait.... rye is a winter crop, it could be spring? That's when it turns gold here. When does this poem take place? One can't look up the monthly weather till one figures out what month or season it takes place iN? Lillies in bloom? Easter? Spring?
But I did find this from WEbMD:
What can cause hypothermia?
Hypothermia can occur when you are exposed to cold air, water, wind, or rain.
Your body temperature can drop to a low level at temperatures of 50 °F (10 °C) or higher in wet and windy weather, or if you are in 60 °F (16 °C) to 70 °F (21 °C) water. If you have mild hypothermia, home treatment may be enough to bring your body temperature back up to normal.
Anybody who has been to Tintagel knows the winds, it's on the coast and the winds roar and you are cold all the time. If it's early Spring (lilies?) then it's in the 30's and raining most of the time in the evenings. It looks to me like Barb's theory of hypothermia is right on.
Now here are our "one words" so far, have I left anybody out?
---shattering of self-delusions and it's possible consequences (Frybabe)
--- disenchantment (Halcyon)
---romantic (nlhome)
--- Reflection/ Reflective: Andrea (ALF)
---Fear (ginny)
But Tennyson went on. Once he married, according to the Winged book, all sorts of honors and joy came his way, he was literally drowning in joy. What a lovely ending for him. But when he wrote this, a completely different fate seemed to await him, or so he appears to have thought. I like the date now of his doctor's diagnosis, 1848 and his subsequent marriage in 1849 because this poem is sort of a desperate sad thing, to me, a person (Lady, Tennyson, anybody) shut off from the brightness (metal glinting, bells jingling, and singing on top of it) world of perfection out there which could be his if only he dared try.
You can see what he thought trying would get him.
Frybabe, the Life of the Life I thought was a biography of Tennyson, but I can't find it either. Thank you for that exhaustive research, I agree that doesn't quite fit, but it's interesting, anyway. It may be, like other British books, in a different title here.
And in back reading I found Halcyon saying this: Don't we all weave the web of our own reality every day?
And there it is again. We actually do, don't we? And especially on the internet, where some people actually create a fictional person...just because they can. Or they are not happy with themselves. Just weave a new person, who will know?
Now those of you who don't see Tennyson as the Lady, what do you see? A fairy tale where the Lady inexplicably dies? What do you see? You are as entitled as anybody else to your opinion.
I want to look now at the way the poem is written. What rhymes and what doesn't and the Pathguy has given me an idea about who those stanzas reference, did you notice that?
But he's not said what it means. I'd like to look at that.
The Lady of Shalott is called a "ballad." What IS a ballad? What's the pattern or rhyme scheme of it? IS this one? As we've started in on this we may as well do it well. :) What's the difference in a ballad and a "lay?" (No off color remarks, please!) hahahaa
I'm actually thinking the rhyme scheme here may be important. I could be dead wrong but we won't know unless we look at it, right?
What time of year is it?
And just to confuse things further, Spark Notes (http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/tennyson/section2.rhtml)
says the following:[/color]
The Virtues of Perseverance and Optimism
After the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, Tennyson struggled through a period of deep despair, which he eventually overcame to begin writing again. During his time of mourning, Tennyson rarely wrote and, for many years, battled alcoholism. Many of his poems are about the temptation to give up and fall prey to pessimism, but they also extol the virtues of optimism and discuss the importance of struggling on with life. The need to persevere and continue is the central theme of In Memoriam and “Ulysses” (1833), both written after Hallam’s death. Perhaps because of Tennyson’s gloomy and tragic childhood, perseverance and optimism also appear in poetry written before Hallam’s death, such as “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832, 1842). Poems such as “The Lady of Shalott” (1832, 1842) and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) also vary this theme: both poems glorify characters who embrace their destinies in life, even though those destinies end in tragic death. The Lady of Shalott leaves her seclusion to meet the outer world, determined to seek the love that is missing in her life. The cavalrymen in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” keep charging through the valley toward the Russian cannons; they persevere even as they realize that they will likely die.
I didn't know Tennyson was alcoholic? Did you see the Lady "glorified?" by her embracing her destiny in life?
She failed, right? OR? I'm not seeing her glorified.
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I discovered something when trying to compare the poem line by line. Only in the path guy's version does the line "Beholding all her own mischance" change to "his mischance" in the later version. Reading the poem as written on The Poetry Foundation's site and the Camelot Project at the University of Rochester the line originally says "his" and does not change.
The stanza below was in the 1832 version in Part 1. Who does the bold section refer to The Lady or someone in the shallop?
The little isle is all inrail'd
With a rose-fence, and overtrail'd
With roses: by the marge unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken sail'd,
Skimming down to Camelot.
A pearl garland winds her head:
She leaneth on a velvet bed,
Full royally apparelled,
The Lady of Shalott.[/color]
Ginny, I'm wondering if this takes place over more than one season?
Also, what, if anything, does Tennyson's religious beliefs have to do with the ending change? Was Tennyson mocking Lancelot, God or religion?
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd 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."[/color]
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A pearl garland winds her head: what a lovely line to bring to our attention Halcyon and so apropos - I do not know if it is still the fashion but when I was a babe, as my mother before me and when my daughter was a babe we still carried the tradition of giving as a Baptism gift to the new Baby girl a pearl and for families with greater means there was more than one pearl or for some little girls a pearl was added to a gold chain every year and for sure we received a string of pearls for our sixteenth birthday.
Not only did the pearl stand for the purity and innocence of a girl child but it was part of the Baptism tradition, the 'pearl of great price' that was supporting the baby girl with the courage to know she would encounter dangers and now she had Christ the Savior at her side throughout her life.
I cannot believe that tradition came out of the blue and so I can see that as being understood when readers read Tennyson's poem that the Lady of Shalott was wearing the sign of courage and that Christ was with her on her journey down river.
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aha ;) Ginny my one word was - Change
I am not good at it and it takes posting for me to see how difficult it is to write ironic comedy but my post about Tirra-Lirra was an ironic piece of fun - here we read how Tennyson so revered Shakespeare as the Great Sage and so...his memorial to this great admired man in this poem is the inane singing jingle Tirra-Lirra - don't you think it is funny and so ironic it makes me laugh with the joy of it...
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What a lovely tradition Barb.
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Barb. Do you still have your pearls? What a nice way to celebrate your baptism. Did the boys get something special? I love these stories about family traditions.
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Yep - hoping for a granddaughter - my daughter has hers - this was the way for nearly all the schoolmates I had growing up -
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'No off color remarks, please.' Certainly, Ginny, but I could not finish your wonderful post with a straight face.
How wonderfully ironic. In the end Camelot and its king were the escape Tennyson needed. Real life had been too painful for him. I visited Tintagel many years ago. Certainly a magical, awesome place. Tennyson visited the area and felt himself close to God.
After a lot of thought and searching for one word for this poem, I decided that 'whodunit' would serve best to catch its spirit. What a mystery. What a death that made the knights cross themselves with fear. That's so unknightly. Clues? The Lady was at her window, only 'a bow shot' away. Bow shots are death dealing. Lancelot is caught at the scene. A shallop was seen leaving the scene at great speed, leaving a little boat behind. Why would a living Lady need to identify herself with a banner on the boat? And many more questions come to mind. Come to think of it, poetry must have served the Victorians as science fiction and mystery. And Tennyson was happy to fill the need. The knights were sent a message.
Here's something curious from my volume of Tennyson's poetry. As we know, The Lady of Shalott was written in his early twentys. Before that, according to the table of contents of my collection of T's poetry , he had written poems to or about: 'Claribel', 'Lillian', 'Isabel', 'Mariana', 'Madeline', 'Oriana', 'Adeline', 'Margaret', 'Rosalind', 'Eleanore, and 'Kate'.
Kate: 'I know her by her angry air, Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair, Her rapid laughters wild and shrill, As laughters of the woodpecker From the bosom of a hill. 'Tis Kate - she sayeth what she will: For Kate hath an unbridled tongue, Clear as the twanging of a harp. Her heart is like a throbbing star....Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce; But none are bold enough for Kate She cannot find a fitting mate.'
And then The Lady of Shalott.
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Look at that rhythm in Jonathan's poem!
Da DA da DA da DA da DA
This work me up at 2 am. I kept thinking what if...what IF we had a "Tennyson Day" in here and everybody wrote their thoughts in this rhythm?
Are you game? hhahaa And then I thought, wait? What IS the rhyme scheme and the meter, what?
OH it's a lot more complicated than I thought.
A LOT.
I found Schmoop: http://www.shmoop.com/lady-of-shalott/rhyme-form-meter.html
And here is what they say, I'll just quote it in quotation marks and not in the dark matter:
"Analysis: Form and Meter
Rhyming Lines in Iambic and Trochaic Tetrameter
Let's start with the way Tennyson breaks up the lines in this poem. The most basic division in the poem is the four big chunks (Parts 1-4). It might help to think of these like acts in a play – they each focus on a different part of the plot. Part 1 describes the landscape around Shalott. Part 2 describes the Lady and the things she sees in her mirror. Part 3 deals with the appearance of Lancelot and how cool he is. Part 4 covers the Lady's boat ride and her death. When you move to a new part, it's a signal that the poem's plot is shifting gears.
The next important things to notice are the stanzas, the smaller groups of lines, which are like the paragraphs of a poem. In this particular poem, Tennyson makes it easy on us, because the stanzas are always nine lines long. There are a total of nineteen stanzas in the whole poem. If we count up the stanzas, we can see that the Parts of the poem get longer as we go along. The first two parts have four stanzas each, Part 3 has five stanzas, and Part 4 (the longest) has six stanzas. You definitely don't have to memorize these details, but it's good to keep an eye out for them. Great poems are always carefully put together.
Now let's check out the way this poem rhymes. Tennyson made a big deal out of the rhyming lines in this poem, which are super-noticeable once you start to focus on them. Each stanza in this poem rhymes in exactly the same way, so once we show you how one of them works, you'll know everything there is to know. We'll demonstrate with the first stanza. To make it clearer, we'll put rhyming sounds in bold, and give each different sound a letter:
On either side the river lie A
Long fields of barley and of rye, A
That clothe the wold and meet the sky; A
And through the field the road runs by A
To many-towered Camelot; B
And up and down the people go, C
Gazing where the lilies blow C
Round an island there below, C
The island of Shalott. B
See how that works? We start out with four rhyming lines in a row (in this case: lie, rye, sky, by). Then in line 5 we get the word "Camelot." The rhyme in this poem is so steady that the fifth line of each stanza almost always ends with "Camelot." Then we get three more rhyming lines in a row (in this case go, blow, below). Finally, we end the stanza with the word "Shalott" which ends almost every stanza (and rhymes with "Camelot" in line 5). It might seem a little complicated at first, but like we say, once you have this down, it works for every stanza in the poem.
Finally, let's take a look at the rhythm of this poem (what English teachers call the meter). This one gets a little trickier than the rhyme. We won't bug you with all the details, but here's a quick overview:
Most of the lines in this poem have eight syllables, although there are a bunch with five or seven too. Tennyson uses two different basic rhythms for these lines. We'll show them to you so you can compare. Again, don't get freaked about these details, just think of them as a part of your poetry toolkit.
The first kind of meter is called iambic. In this meter, if you divide all the syllables in the line into groups of two, the emphasis falls on the second syllable (da DUM). That's how the poem starts out. We'll show you by dividing the syllables up with slashes and putting the stressed syllable in bold:
On ei|ther side | the ri|ver lie
Long fields | of bar|ley and | of rye,
Got that? Feel how the rhythm goes: da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM? How about if we switch it around, and put the stress first? That's exactly what Tennyson does in the beginning of the second stanza:
Willows | whiten,| aspens | quiver,
Little | breezes | dusk and | shiver
Feel the difference there? Now it goes: DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da. We call this kind of meter trochaic. So in fancy English teacher terms, he's switched from iambic to trochaic tetrameter ("tetrameter" just means there are four groups of syllables per line). We're not so worried about the names, though. We just think it's worth tuning your ear a little so you can hear those shifts in rhythm. It's like learning to play your favorite song on a guitar. It helps you see how it's put together, and hopefully makes you love it even more."
And they go on. How interesting is THAT?
So when we get to the crux of the poem,
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' 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.
Even I can see the meter changes. From the regular da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM She left the web, she left the loom, to a disruption:
Out flew the web and floated wide;
And his use of these devices makes the poem even more powerful. It reminds me of the Ancient Mariner where the actual lines mimicked the story line.
That's really good writing.
And that site has a lot of other things of interest we might want to discuss, too.
I wanted to get this here and this website so that those who were happily nodding along in rhythm could see there is a reason for it. I also noticed that in the song, too, the ballad sung in the heading, she stumbles on some of these changes.
I just love looking at how something is put together. Now the question of what IS a ballad rears its head, let's find out. Love it.
But there's more!
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But now Halcyon, what is this? The Path Guy has led us down the wrong path?
I discovered something when trying to compare the poem line by line. Only in the path guy's version does the line "Beholding all her own mischance" change to "his mischance" in the later version. Reading the poem as written on The Poetry Foundation's site and the Camelot Project at the University of Rochester the line originally says "his" and does not change.
Fie! How many versions ARE there? So it's HIS own mischance? So he is the seer. Who is HE?
The schmoop people offer up yet another interesting segue on this, too, who, they ask, is the NARRATOR of this piece?
What a good question THAT is.
Also Halcyon I think you have a point that it may be over more than one season to show time passing, that's another box checked, thank you.
But you open up another Pandora's box with this one:
The stanza below was in the 1832 version in Part 1. Who does the bold section refer to The Lady or someone in the shallop?
I thought the Lady was in the shallop and the shallop was just another word for rowboat, or skiff or shallow boat, am I wrong?
Actually it's interesting to compare the paintings of this event vis a vis the boat, they are quite different. But she is definitely lying down. Let me bring a few here tomorrow.
Barbara I am sorry I missed your "change," which is a good one word and Jonathan, I will put up your "whodunit" as well, the deeper we get into this the stronger that word suggests itself to me, too.
Loved the pearls info, lovely.
On the bystanders crossing themselves, we can see that today. I have a friend who does that when she sees a dead animal on the road so thought nothing of it here. Should I, tho? Should I ask her exactly what she intends with that, the poem says they crossed themselves with fear, I think that's accurate, I have seen that.
So who is the Narrator? And now what does "mischance" mean? What IS a ballad? Is this thing in the form OF a ballad or not?
I think it does make a difference if he's coming or going. If he's going TO Camelot he's going to glory, that's the pinnacle, right? So she wants to go too, and she bravely gets in the boat (putting her name on it...why? Why go out in a storm?
Well heck, look at this, there's no question it's hypothermia, it's a doggone storm!
Part IV.
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.
And down the river's dim expanse –
Like some bold seër 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.
And note, she didn't even untie the boat until dark, so she really must have been miserable. Why do it like this?
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 darken'd 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,
A corse between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round 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 cross'd 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."
So she gets TO go to Camelot, singing all the way. It's a storm, it's windy, cold, raining, she's out in the rain, it's after dark, and she lies down with not much on and passes on to Camelot. Why did she put her name on the boat in the last version? Poor doomed thing.
Can we, dare we, ask why? Why not do this some other way? Is this what YOU would have done? Have you ever done something dangerous like this out of sheer determination? I assume since you're here it turned out all right, thank goodness, but as we all look back on our lives, some of us have taken some pretty silly chances. So WAS she cursed?
I mean she wanted the light, the bells, the shining, the jewels, the jingling, the singing so why did she choose this way? There are none of those in a cold wet boat in the dark.
Any ideas?
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I've had my one word for some time: isolation. But it's not quite exactly what I mean, so I've been trying to think of a better. Maybe I should dig up my Roget's Thesaurus.
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OH sorry, up it goes! Gee I missed a bunch of them. I think when you all say something I get so excited about what you've said it blocks out stuff (or that's my excuse). Thank you for that!
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"whodunit?" - Maybe not really, but it brought to mind "The Mirror Crack'd" by Agatha Christie, and I believe that title came from this poem and the plot involved a type of cursed life.
I wonder which words he used because they fit the rhyme or the meter better than another choice?
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'Poor doomed thing. So WAS she cursed? It's a storm, it's windy, cold, raining.'
Wonderful analysis, Ginny. It struck me to see how all nature is reacting to what has come to pass. It was such a serene landscape in the beginning. No, I don't see the entrancement and the 'glassy countenance' as part of a curse. I imagine the effect of a poisonous dart launched by the bow shot. And the 'witch' behind the 'spell' is the jealous Queen Guinevere of Camelot, who is in love with Lancelot.
I believe the reader is expected to know of what's going on in Camelot. In eighteen stanzas the fifth verse ends with Camelot. And in one stanza it ends with Lancelot. In Part III, of course when he comes along strutting his stuff. The queen knows she may be losing him and lays her plan. And out of it came this sad and beautiful ballad.
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Form and meter is fun to look at - for me remembering why it is even put to use gives me a reason to go back and enjoy it for what it is - all these constructs are there for us to better read and understand the crux of the poem -
When we write and talk we say, 'and then' - 'Oh you wouldn't believe' - 'but' - 'however' - as a way to keep our listener's attention as we finish what we have to say. In poetry there is a rhythm established using rhyme and meter and even form that if you expected to hear the repetition, you will not stop listening till the rhythmical meter is complete.
And so if every line or every other line is ending with a similar sound or a group of lines comes to a conclusion and another group start or any kind of repetition you will read till that grouping comes to a conclusion -
In the stanzas shared above as examples, all four lines use a similar sounding end word until... da da da dah
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
A corse between the houses high,
A change always means - pay attention this is important. Lovely almost gay is the description of the tower, balcony, garden-wall, gallery simply by grouping them together and including the word garden. Then, a different tone - the ending words do not match the first two lines - this is a different pattern using different rhyme endings than the first two lines in the stanzas - what is this about - why are we supposed to sit up and be concerned - 'by' and 'high' keep the two lines together but why different than the first two lines? This early version, he uses the word 'corse' that later becomes 'dead-pale' - what is so significant about her gleaming shape that is a corpse floating under towers and balconies and next to garden-walls and galleries I wonder?
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FYI....our Ginny has lost power in this storm raging in the east. They are in the country, so who knows when power will be restored. She'll be back when she can, and she hopes you'll all continue on with this great discussion.
Jane
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Thanks, Jane, I'm back, I don't know for how long but I'm back (fell off the boat and am now trying to clamber back in. hahaahaa)
I had not really noticed until you mentioned it, Jonathan, how violently the weather changed. For somebody who takes a lot of notice of omens, that one sort of bypassed her. Or did it?
The Mirror Cracked, that's a good point, nhome, i had forgotten about that Agatha Christie book, does anybody know what the plot is about? Anything to do with our plot here?
I can sort of see why the stanzas would end in Camelot (as that's the goal) and Lancelot (as he's the trigger) but I don't see Guinevere shooting the bow shot, she's not even in the thing and
besides, the Lady is not visible. On the other hand, there IS a curse, and why should there be a curse and strange it should involve Lancelot (I still think he's an innocent party). Guinevere could be sort of the witch at the Christening type of thing..I wonder if the cracking of the mirror made the Lady think of the curse beginning (it says so) and she just gave up?
I mean she took no precautions, no cover, no good time to go, she just gave up and went almost in a trance, that would explain the glassy countenance.
Didn't work out well for her. On the other hand...there's the singing...
And then there's the pale corpse floating down the river between the towers. The colors in this thing as Barbara has pointed out, really do make an impact themselves.
Of course, what do I know? How far CAN a bow shoot, anyway?
Can't be too far from Camelot, why is she called The Lady of Shalott, anyway?
Is Shallot something? Somewhere?
Such a beautiful poem the words, the imagery.
One thing nobody mentioned is loneliness. She's alone. I really am liking Shmoop who has all kinds of great questions.
Look at these:
Questions About Isolation
1. Do you think the Lady of Shalott escapes her isolation by the end of the poem?
2. Does the magic mirror make her seem more isolated or less? Does that little bit of contact with the world make things worse or better?
For one thing, does she actually know she's not going to make it? Where is this "suicide" stuff coming from, when I read it she's singing. She's riding down in the boat to the desired place singing. Singing a lot:
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. [18]
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly, [19]
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.
Jonathan originally says of course she knows she can't get there unless by dying.
She is singing, not one feeble song, but all the way down to the first house. How far WAS it?
Do you sing when you're unhappy and you think the world has ended? Could she be so excited that she doesn't mind anything at all but she's finally free and going where she wants to go? And singing while she's doing it. Then it's doubly cruel she doesn't make it.
It's pitiful because she does not have a grasp on the situation unless you read a whole lot into it. Lancelot does not know who she is. She's headed for the glitter and the bright lights and she's singing all the way. Like a lot of other unprepared people since her time.
Whose fault is it she doesn't make it? The thing is full of "fault." I should have made my one word fault.
A shallop for your thoughts. :)
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So glad you are back - it looks like no east wind for you but a north wind with all its icy blow however with enough sense to stay indoors and not go singing in the night drifting down river ;)
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I agree with Ginny. I do not see a suicide here, only a life that sadly ended. I had the sense that our Lady didn't care. She was free ; free from the isolation of the castle walls, free from the distortion of the cracked mirror and finally free from the "reflection" of the distant world. She would be musing, sailing down the river, elated!
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Dead or alive...I'm off to Camelot. The whole purpose of the poem is to get us to Camelot. Isn't that plain, from all the repetition? And this poem did draw Tennyson into the world of Arthurian legend. The death of the Lady does seem like a weird introduction for those of us who want to go on to Tennyson's Idylls.
And then there are times when I wonder if this poem was Tennyson's opium dream. His Kubla Khan, a la Coleridge. Or his Confessions, a la De Quincey. He must have been familiar with both. Perhaps in the next dream the Lady reawakens to her brave new world. The broken mirror could have us wishing that the smoke gets blown away. I've never seen a poem with so many poetical devices. So many tricks of the imagination. Flesh and blood is hard to find, but it's there. That's revealed by those in Camelot when she arrives. The poor Lady.
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Now those are some very astute observations, Jonathan.
I've spent a lot of time (a LOT of time) on sites talking about ballads. It appears the ballad form we have here is not the standard form, guess what IS? Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Stanzas of 4, with alternating trimeter and tetrameter lines if I recall that right. We don't have that here, and yet more than one site refers to this as a "ballad."
Anybody have any idea why?
Maybe I have not understood what I've read.
Smoke and mirrors, what an interesting thing to imply Jonathan. It iS mysterious, it really is. And that apparently IS one of the characteristics of the ballad..actually.
Thank you Barbara, no, I am staying way out of boats for a while in these temps. :)
Jonathan thinks all roads here lead to Camelot. The purpose, says Jonathan, is to get TO Camelot. So the "from" Camelot by Lancelot in one version might take on new meaning, but he's innocent, I can't see him with any blame whatsoever.
Andrea (ALF) says: I had the sense that our Lady didn't care. She was free ; free from the isolation of the castle walls, free from the distortion of the cracked mirror and finally free from the "reflection" of the distant world. She would be musing, sailing down the river, elated!
Now here's a question for all of us. What happens when you actually reach your own personal goal, like the Lady did? It took a lot for her to look out, to take those three steps and look at the result. Sometimes we need to be careful what we want because it might not turn out to our benefit and so we have to ask the question that Schmoop did: and it's just as good a question if I had thought of it, at least I'm honest and not pretending I did, but it's a GOOD one:
Is the Lady better or worse off for having realized her dream? And to that we could add would she have been better not to have taken the plunge? In which is she more happy?
And I would have to add what is Tennyson saying here? Now he's been accused of "keeping women down" type of behavior. If this were Lancelot, for example, we'd expect him to bravely break the chains, the mirror, the whole thing and probably sing while he did it. And would his end have been better? I bet you he wouldn't have sailed out in that weather.
SHE only looks out a window, I mean come on, that's all she did. So from her own point of view is she better off as it ended than staying as she was?
That's a powerful question and it does speak to aging pretty well. I just read a big piece on staying in your own home is better for you than all the fancy retirement centers that are out there. I am not sure on that one, either. This question speaks to PatH's one word: isolation.
And now Halcyon has asked about religious inference in this poem, is there any? Are we to draw conclusions (we may as well, the Lady does) from some of the things mentioned here?
What do you think about any or all of these things?
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Whoops Ginny, your message popped up while I was writing
I guess Jonathan we all have our own Camelot don't we - I like Alf's conclusion - straight forward romantic -
Found this great explanation to understanding the Purpose versus the Meaning of a Poem.
http://classroom.synonym.com/purpose-vs-meaning-poem-3636.html (http://classroom.synonym.com/purpose-vs-meaning-poem-3636.html)
I like this quote from the last paragraph of this short essay - "At times, inference must play a large role in interpreting the meaning and purpose of a poem. Yet an inference cannot be made without incorporating the reader's own prior knowledge, experiences or bias. Because of its interpretive nature, poetry nearly begs readers to include pieces of themselves in their conclusions."
Thanks for the reminder - I forgot the Halcyon suggested a religious meaning - Today being Ash Wednesday I can easily see this poem as a representation of life as well as, the representation of a spiritual life from awakening to the incorporation of our spirit with universal peace.
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Found an old volume by Jessie L. Weston titled, The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac, Studies upon its Development, and Position in the Arthurian Romantic Cycle. He did similar book on Sir Gawain and Sir Perceval. She was a folklorist who worked primarily with medieval text pertaining to the Arthurian legends. She would have been 42 when Tennyson passed away, so she was probably familiar with his work.
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Hahaha Ginny - ah that is the question- is the Lady better off or not for following her dream (heart?)
In my opinion we all are. Many of us are not made to take a middle of the road stance. That's wishy -washy behavior. If you take your stand in the middle of the road, you will be run over! Go for it, fair damsel. Is death worse than the isolated existence she has encountered?
I've never been much of a dreamer but a big believer in stepping out.
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I found this scrumptious literary analysis of the Lady. It also speaks to rhymes and lines and ballads.
http://www.academia.edu/8223377/The_Ballad_of_The_Lady_of_Shalott
Hahaha Ginny - ah that is the question- is the Lady better off or not for following her dream (heart?)
Do you think her dream was to get to Camelot or to get Lancelot?
Love this comment by Poe: "Why do some persons fatigue themselves in endeavours to unravel such phantasy pieces as the 'Lady of Shallot'?
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Halcyon I think we could all, as a result of our inquiry here write our literary analysis of this work - what do you think? We sure have found so much in this poem. And I do like the Poe quote - it sounds like something a poet would say as compared to someone critiquing the work of a poet.
I've been on the trail of Frybabe's last post about Jessie L. Weston. Wow, the books written by this author really open the door to making the connections between past poets and newer works - evidently this author's writings about the Arthur Legends was said by Eliot to be his source and constant companion when he wrote the Wasteland. I cannot find the quote now, I read so many sites but his quote on one of those sites did say, that to understand the Wasteland Jessie L. Weston's books should be first read. Seems to me he was specific which book but now I do not remember - I think it was the one written about Arthur. However, Tra La, on Amazon I found for a penny - yep a penny plus shipping of course but for a total of $4 - From Ritual to Romance: The Classic Study of the Arthurian Legend and the Roots of Religion - Weston, Jessie L.
This title and all the other titles from Weston has me thinking and wondering of my own education. I was in High school from '47 to '51 and granted it was a Catholic high school I learned the Arthur legends including this Lady of Shalott as being an analogy to Christianity as a theology (not as an organized religion) as a theology of Salvation, the journey of the soul on earth and we learned many of the Christian symbolisms for which the characters in these legends are metaphors. So now I am wondering if what and how I learned to understand these poems was because my High School English Lit teachers, Mrs. Kennedy and Sister Ursala possibly read Jessie L. Weston. To this day the only way I see these characters as real flesh and blood characters is by remembering our visit to NY and seeing the Broadway play Camelot where as if I pick up a book that is about any of the Arthur legend I first thing see the characters as symbols and metaphors.
Another exercise that I think is fascinating - there is a nice poetry writing group in town that I do not attend regularly any more but one of our evenings was a discussion of why we choose a certain form to tell the story that we have in mind - then we chose our own punch line or as a reader would probably see it as the message and incorporated our words using various formats -
Wow was that enlightening as we realized how the story was altered based on the format we chose in addition to what rhyming scheme and how we wrote a line using either enjambment or end-stopped lines - problem writing poetry there is so much, it can take up all your thinking and time so that you never get anything done - I soon realized I would need to live as Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own suggests - with little to no responsibility except to writing. From the resources found and recommended here that is what Tennyson ended up doing, only marrying after he could afford to have a family and still write.
The idea of understanding the music of words that he taught himself is to me ground moving and now as I read any poetry, round two of a read, I am conscious of the words chosen to see how their tone adds to the impact of the poem.
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Ahhhh, Barb! Now I am going to have to go find Wasteland.
"The music of words". I like that phrase, very much. Did the minstrels of old set poems to music, or music to poems? Did the ancients, when reciting their poetry or stories, set them to music or accompany them with music or rhythm? I kind of remember touching on this when we discussed several classical Greek plays.
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Which came first--the chicken or the egg? The music or the words? I bet it was both ways with the minstrels, making verses to fit popular tunes, and writing music for their verse.
The classical Greek plays had both music and dancing, and were rather like opera. The actors would sing, and the chorus would both sing and dance, with a lot of structure in the arrangement of the play. Here's a brief summary of the structure, a reference from our discussion:
http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~mclennan/Classes/US210/Greek-play.html (http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~mclennan/Classes/US210/Greek-play.html)
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When we analyzed The Waste Land here, I got From Ritual to Romance, not for a penny, but cheap. But I was working so hard trying to understand the Eliot that I never got around to reading it. It must be around here somewhere.
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The Book Club Online is the oldest book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone. We offer cordial discussions of one book a month, 24/7 and enjoy the company of readers from all over the world. Everyone is welcome.
February Book Club Online:
The Lady of Shalott
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892 )
(http://seniorlearn.org/latin/graphics/Howardpylelady1.jpg)
(http://seniorlearn.org/latin/graphics/howarpyle2.jpg)
The Lady of Shalott by Howard Pyle for the first edition
Our Readers Respond to the Question, What's This Poem About in One Word:
---shattering of self-delusions and its possible consequences (Frybabe)
--- disenchantment (Halcyon)
---romantic (nlhome)
---reflection/ reflective: Andrea (ALF)
---fear (ginny)
---change (Barb)
---whodunit? (Jonathan)
---isolation (Pat H.)
(http://seniorlearn.org/latin/graphics/LadyofShalottW.jpg)
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, (1881)
DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:
February 9-28
Interesting Links: :
~ Enjoy this haunting rendition of the poem in ballad form by Loreen McKenna with many beautiful illustrations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0rVNQw1DQM)
~A comparison of editions: 1833 and 1842 by The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/shalcomb.htm)
~ Elaine of Astolat links (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/elanmenu.htm)
Elaine of Astolat is the maiden who dies of unrequited love for Lancelot and floats in a barge to Camelot with a letter for Lancelot clutched in her lifeless hand. She appears in Malory and in Tennyson's idyll of "Lancelot and Elaine." The figure of Elaine in the barge became one of the most popular Victorian images.
~ SC Edu Library Online Text (http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/britlit/tenn/shalott.html)
~ A wonderful page on the Lady by a pathologist with a very clever way of comparing the editions. (http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm)
~The Winged Horse: Tennyson, submitted by Jonathan and Frybabe. (https://archive.org/stream/wingedhorsestory00jose#page/302/mode/2up/search/303)
~Schmoop: A discussion of the rhyme scheme and meter of the Lady (http://www.shmoop.com/lady-of-shalott/rhyme-form-meter.html)
Discussion Leader: ginny (gvinesc@gmail.com )
(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/ladyofshalott/Beyondbattlemet.jpg)
And there are knights in shining armor, too!! How up ARE you on your knights and armor? Take This delightful quiz from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/interactives/adults-teachers/beyond-battle) and enjoy finding out!
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I wish I had a copy of From Ritual to Romance, it sounds just the thing! Thank you for making that parallel, to Greek drama, Pat!
Oh and we're talking about The Waste Land, I absolutely love Eliot, so nice to be talking (such as I am) about poetry again. I really think we should have a Lady Day and come as bards and speak in rhyme. I think we can do it, what about Sunday? Since I think in sing song anyway, it shouldn't be hard.
And since Poe seems jealous enough to begrudge people enjoying trying to figure out what on earth The Lady is about, maybe we should have a Poe day, too. I mean really, quoth the raven and all that. On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door (that might not be accurate but I'm not looking it up). I had seen that quote in another place and marveled at it.
He sounds like Frost, "a poem should not mean, but be."
Yeah well if you're not on the same wave length as the poet apparently is, it's fun to try to figure out what the heck he is saying in case it has some relevance to anything. hahahaa Because often it IS poetry you call to mind for some reason in stressful times.
I was also surprised to find in my reading that Casey at the Bat is a ballad, anybody but me remember that one? There used to be an anthology of Modern (years ago) American poetry which contained that one, I used to love it "That ain't my style," said Casey and the umpire said "Strike two!" Or something like that. I used to love it: the Mudville 9.
How about the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald? I wonder if that's a poem as well as a ballad, it's quite haunting but I think it's because of the music, so which came first? Moving presentation here: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DUFPNILvM)
I am agog to see what Jonathan finds in his new book!!
Thank you for that link, Halcyon. It's still loading! It's been loading for a long time and I think that I have a password to that site somewhere but have forgotten it. Hopefully it will load, it says it's loading a preview.
Oh now but Andrea has thrown down the gauntlet, but she's always been fearless:
Hahaha Ginny - ah that is the question- is the Lady better off or not for following her dream (heart?)
In my opinion we all are. Many of us are not made to take a middle of the road stance. That's wishy -washy behavior. If you take your stand in the middle of the road, you will be run over! Go for it, fair damsel. Is death worse than the isolated existence she has encountered?
I've never been much of a dreamer but a big believer in stepping out.
And Halcyon and Andrea have asked the two searing questions of the day:
Do you think her dream was to get to Camelot or to get Lancelot? (Halcyon)
What was it that the Lady really wanted? Did she get it? Was she better off or not when she did?
And then ANDREA: Is death worse than the isolated existence she has encountered?
Anybody brave enough to tackle that one?
I'm going to go way out on a limb here (but what's a book discussion FOR except to enjoy talking about the ideas) and try Halcyon's first because Andrea's is explosive and I want to think about it, and I've been thinking about the first one a long time.
As to what did she really want? Camelot or Lancelot, I'm going to say both and none. Not really. That's why she approached it as she did.
I'm going to say the grass looked greener for a minute there, symbolic on the hill in the case of Camelot with so many happy comings and goings and shining and jingling and possibly exciting "happily ever after" dreams with Lancelot (and she's no different from any other fan of any movie star)...So I'm going to say that in my opinion, which is decidedly limited, I think she was better off staying in her tower, (sorry) doing useful work which was creative and artistic, in which she was happy for a time, singing to herself and making up excuses (the curse) for not venturing out into a world she obviously did not understand or...fit in? She fit in where she was. She was enjoying her limited world, more than how she ended up, in many ways.
The grass is not always greener. Does anybody agree with me on this one point, or not? Makes no difference, if you do or not, you're entitled to whatever you think. OR what in your opinion, DID she really want? WAS she better off when she tried to get it, as Andrea says?
I may have to put these answers in the heading, too.
And then, maybe if we're brave enough to tackle that gentle one, maybe we can try Andrea's crusher.
A bridle bell for your thoughts. :)
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I always did like Poe.
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Hmm do you think he was jealous or simply giving his viewpoint that would be from a poet's point of view just as most of us wanting to be more than charmed attempt to understand a poem from a the point of view of someone critiquing a work -
As to Alf's lock up or death conundrum - I cannot imagine when most of us step out to live we see the risk of death and yet, we all die one way or another don't we.
We probably all have our Camelot - so many books available about living your dream and how to achieve your dream - it is when you are not sure - where is your Camelot, as in not owning a shiny big dream that today you feel out of step - it appears our lady is before her time and would do well with lots of guidance, workshops, TEDs in the twenty-first century.
All this cold weather - nothing like up north but for us cold - kept me indoors - Spring has sprung around here and I need to get going or the yard takes over - I am behind on so much I'll need a wall to keep my yard from the sight of anyone, dead or alive passing by in boat or otherwise.
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It seems to me the Lady's reaction to seeing Lancelot in the mirror was an automatic, startled reaction to something totally beyond her previous experience. She seemed to be happy up until she saw Lancelot. He was the catalyst. Once she turned away from the mirror whether she stayed or went, her fate was sealed, was it not? It wasn't her leaving that activated the curse; it was looking directly at the real world. So why not take a risk and try for the prize? What did she have to lose at that point. Once her eyes were opened to other (or outside) possibilities, there really was no turning back. Knowledge has power. Maybe what is important is not her destination, but that she took the risk. In this case, it destroyed her. She made it to Camelot, but she never knew it.
Just think of what this world would be like if no one looked or went "outside the box". No personal advancement, no gains to civilization as a whole.
Another thought, maybe Halcyon and Barb have a point about religious significance. My one word there would be Temptation. Look what temptation did to Adam and Eve, et.al. They took a risk and got thrown out of the Garden of Eden.
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Poe may have been right. It takes a poet to recognize another. So, if it's all phantasy anything is possible. (But I'm left with the suspicion that Tennyson's pipe had something to do with it. He was never without it when he was 'working'.)
'I've never been much of a dreamer but a big believer in stepping out.' Ginny also suggested in an earlier post that the poem might be a poetic description of the 'plight of the restricted Victorian woman.'
Stepping out. Those words might have come right out of the Lady's mouth. She's not dead at all. She only looks lifeless. She's off to Camelot. And this is her way of making a grand entrance. Perhaps there is a religious element. Perhaps she comes out of her 'trance' or 'fantasy' singing Amazing Grace.
I'm losing sleep over this one. The new biography To Strive, To Seek, to Find, is very good. He has Tennyson very much involved in womens' liberation. Especially in The Princess. Has any one read it? Or should one say experienced it, as Frost would suggest?
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I agree, the "plight of the restricted Victorian woman" is a powerful strand of this multifaceted poem, maybe part of why it became so popular.
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;) looks like everyone took you very seriously Ginny when you asked for the bridle bell of our thoughts since a bridle is used to restrain and control the bell which when swinging represents the extremes of good and evil with the hollow the mouth of the preacher and the clapper his tongue - I love it... 8) - Everyone must have been busy this weekend or holding their clapper in check.
I did get to work in the garden while the temps were still high - another norther moved in here today but thank goodness I did get the fallen branches cut and bundled and after finally having to order Dove dishwashing soap on line since none of the grocery stores stock it anylonger it arrived and I attempted to spray some of the moss that is taking over my Live Oak trees - problem I could only get the hose spray to reach the lower limbs but at least those are done and the moss should start dropping off - Spring is coming folks - here everything is in bloom - the Redbud trees, the Cherry Trees both pink and white, the Jasmin that is thickly draped over so many high fences, and daffodils of all kinds - the deer do not eat daffodils and even the Mountain Laurel is blooming.
Well back to our Lady who passed the Gardenwalls on her way to Camelot. Away from the poem for a couple of days and already I feel the need to review before I share - I'll be back because I smiled Frybabe when I saw your thought that the 'religious' read could be about Temptation - it is interesting how we all see something in this poem but then that is why a classic poem lasts and lasts isn't it.
Ah yes, Jonathan - Poe is not all dark and scary - we do have these quotes, "Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words." And another - "That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful." And I have to share this one "I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat."
Not to be outdone Tennyson gave us some wallops with these words, "Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?" and this wonder - "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power." Wow to contemplate on Self-reverence could be a daily exploration and prayer for this season of Lent.
Well I did want to pop in but I am 10 minutes away from my one and only night that is none stop TV on our local PBS - Lent or not - I will use Sunday as my excuse when dietary restrictions are usually broken but no time left to cook something before the wonders start so I will feast on grapes, cheese and crackers and a glass of Cabernet. Till later...
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:)
I was actually giving folks a chance to comment on either of the very tough questions raised.
To be honest, I am still laughing over the state you report of your garden and that it would not be noticed by anybody passing in a boat, living or dead. I have laughed over that bon mot for days. I love that.
Oh man.
Jonathan has raised the purpose of the poem:
The whole purpose of the poem is to get us to Camelot
I don't know why I am personally so resistant to the idea of Camelot. I can see a couple of lines end in "Camelot." What difference would it make where they are going? Does it make a difference?
If the main theme is LIVE! Whatever the cost, get out there and try, live, as Andrea seems to think, then what has Camelot got to do with it?
Camelot has been there a long time. She has looked out, but it wasn't Camelot which made her cross the room decisively.
I'll answer the last question, which extrapolates the theme here into 2015, and it's a rough one. Is it better to have loved and lost or never loved at all?
Is she now better off? Is it better for her to have tried?
I used to think so. I really did. Don't you find the things you most regret are the things you chose not to do? Or do you?
But what of John Donne? They also serve who only stand and wait.
Folks, she's not better off. She's dead. She died happy? Maybe, just maybe there was another way. There is more than one way to skin a cat. So here maybe is where people blame Tennyson, calling him anti feminist, the woman wants the bright lights, she sallies forth singing in the cold weather, not too much thought going on here. She's not waiting to be rescued, strike that, why couldn't she wave at him, hello Lancelot, from the window?
If the reapers could hear her singing, so could he, unless his jingling (that was a nice set of metaphors there, Barbara) drowned her out, and that itself would have been a tragedy. More water images.
What is Tennyson saying here?
I love this because you have to think.....
So what DO you all think?
more....
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Going back to some of your comments, nlhome, I also used to love Poe. I read everything of his written. I was most fascinated by his horror of being buried alive, so much so that he had a coffin constructed (so they say) with an escape hatch. In those days, it might actually have happened, heck, in our own last year two people miraculously recovered on a gurney in morgues. It can happen. I know one died shortly thereafter, I am not sure of the other.
And Barbara, you may be right, it may not be jealousy, at all. I thought it was kind of waspish, especially considering Poe's works and people killing themselves to analyze them.
Why wouldn't anybody want to analyze something?
If a work is supposedly for the ages, it should speak to our time. I think the Lady does, I am not so sure about Poe's work, but I do like it, nobody writes like he does.
Poems speak to all of us, what are they saying? What part of it resonated with YOU?
I'm still trying to figure out some of Eliot's, and that cake left out in the rain, and the Emperor of Ice Cream, and I haven't looked at them for years. Idle thoughts I guess of an idle mind.
I thought this had a lot of interesting statements in it from Jonathan:
And then there are times when I wonder if this poem was Tennyson's opium dream. His Kubla Khan, a la Coleridge. Or his Confessions, a la De Quincey. He must have been familiar with both. Perhaps in the next dream the Lady reawakens to her brave new world. The broken mirror could have us wishing that the smoke gets blown away. I've never seen a poem with so many poetical devices. So many tricks of the imagination. Flesh and blood is hard to find, but it's there.
When you do see flesh and blood in this, what do they show? I agree on the poetical devices, it's chock full of them, amazing, really. I am not sure how much deeper we want to get into the literary structure of the thing, but it's not just a little ditty.
"Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?" and this wonder - "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power."
Tennyson said this, Barbara?
Wow. How much of this do we see in the Lady crossing the room?
I think Pat has put her finger on this one in respose to your statement ab out the Victorian woman:
I agree, the "plight of the restricted Victorian woman" is a powerful strand of this multifaceted poem, maybe part of why it became so popular.
I was just thinking how poetry, like the War Poets in what used to be called Modern American Poetry, reflect the times they are in.
And if Victorian women (I know nothing of Victorian women) did relate to it as a freedom, seeking freedom from the restrictive (and not only in mores, think of the clothes, the corsets, etc., ) then Tennyson's message here seen in that context is not very cheering.
Oh go off, then, and die. Better to stay at home safe then chafe against the bonds, is that what he's saying? Maybe this again is what has drawn the ire of feminists since. Whatever a "feminist" is.
WE however in 2015 may not see it that way.
Then there's the loneliness of the Lady. But again in 2015, why couldn't she think before acting? Surely there were other opportunities to reach out to somebody. She did not HAVE to be "alone." Why did it have to be Lancelot?
Aim high? Aim so impossibly HIGH and do it so badly that there's nothing left but death? Is this where people get suicide, or is it from the original edited version. I fail to see how suicide would achieve any goal at all.
Of all the themes in this poem, and there are many as we've seen, which one is the most important, to you?
(I'm going off to see if I can find a youtube of a horse with bells on its harness, there is nothing more cheery sounding).
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I don't know Ginny, I do not see her as living. She was exiled, existing only, not really living.
Was it the hand that she was dealt? Was it by CHOICE?
Either way being alive doesn't mean she was living, does it?
I, personally would choose to escape that sustainment.
Or is this all an escape by Tennyson?
My mind becomes more befuddled as I push this theme around.
Camelot? To me that's akin to Utopia. It's an abstract concept, isn't it?
Where the land of milk and honey is found; a fairy land of perfection- pie in the sky???? Nope, I don't buy it. Perhaps I am too much of a realist to believe there is a Camelot (with or without Jack and Jackie.)
IMO she wanted to fashion a change, not recessed behind the castle walls, measuring life reflected through a cracked mirror.
That's another conndrum to me- what exactly is Tennyson saying by depicting her views through images? Could it be reproduction of life?
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Andrea, as always, WHAT good points!! I bet you are the toast of any face to face book club anywhere!
She was exiled, existing only, not really living.
So to you it's quality of life? But she was singing?
Either way being alive doesn't mean she was living, does it?
What a question, what do the rest of you think?
Or is this all an escape by Tennyson?
How do you mean, exactly?
Shmoop has an interesting thought on the perspective one gets from looking down from a tower, let me quote it here:
The setting is like our world, only more so. Have you ever looked at something, and then put on a pair of sunglasses and looked again? You know how they can make something like a sunset seems more intense, brighter, more real than real? That's how we see the setting of this poem. It's not like you don't recognize the things you see, it's just that everything has been soaked in a weird and beautiful kind of magic. Things like trees that might ordinarily just stand there are suddenly almost alive; they dance and shiver. The river suddenly has a voice. It doesn't just burble along, it complains (line 120).
It's not like Tennyson just threw a few magic props into our world. There's something completely, mysteriously different about it. You imagine the sun would be brighter, the songs would be sweeter, and the knights would be taller and stronger. That magic mirror has a little bit of a "through-the-looking glass" feel to it already, and that's what we see everywhere around here: a world like ours, but a little distorted, richer and deeper and more fascinating.
I like that. I'm not sure if that's what you are saying, but i like it, a lot. I had not considered the perspective. But I did think of the grass being greener.
But if that life in the tower was all that was given her (and again you do bring up choice) then why not make the most of IT?
Also is anybody at all buying into the "curse?" Jonathan mentioned he might be?
I came in to say I have replaced the heading original painting by Waterhouse with two by Howard Pyle which graced the First Edition (still available to you in used form on the internet) and the one we're probably the most familiar with by John William Waterhouse in the heading. My two favorite artists who could not be more different. :)
On the bells on the harness I found this film about how Shire horses are trained so they won't spook and the very first minutes have two trotting with bells on down a highway in the UK. Shires are big horses but they are what the Knights in armor used, due to the tremendous weights. You'll have to be the judge if ONE of these, going by on a dirt road could hear singing over the bells?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1jDHFb0OVE
And then I found a horse festival of the bells called Chagu Chagu Umako Japanese Horse Parade Festival , which has no sound, strangely enough but whose horses look caparisoned just like a Knight of old.
(http://atravelinfos.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/162816ilzczzozjjjc11ku.jpg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P8uXyjaqRsQ/UdM0EJ8LVEI/AAAAAAAAAtE/Y7E2rt2a8tY/s800/Chagu+chagu+umako+matsuri3_www.trekearth.com.jpg)
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Oh the last photo - the close up of the Japanese Horses decked out for their parade takes my breath away - the color - the decoration - fabulous.
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Thinking about mirrors - my mirror is new and has clear reflections, but what would a mirror back then be like, would the reflections be more muted, hazy even, like a dream? So when she turned from the mirror and looked out, maybe the world was brighter, clearer, sharper than she expected. How would she react?
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The figure of Lancelot is in the mirror and the only one to make a comment when she arrives in Camelot. This two page essay on Knights in Shining Armor: the Ideal of Christian Knighthood by Collen Anne McAndrew is really worth a read to better understand what Lancelot represented to the Lady of Shalott - and on the second page of this essay is this bit...
"he (Lancelot) continues to sin in relation to Guinevere, despite his attempts to avoid her. His penitence may ultimately save his soul - before he dies he "was houseled and anealed, and had all that a Christian man ought to have" -
Although the paragraph continues with the practical consequences of his behavior he is remembered as a figure of renewal which includes confession of sin, that accompanies the assurances of pardon and therefore, Lancelot glorifies God's Redemption - However, the paragraph continues, "it is not enough to prevent the temporal consequences of his actions. Arthur and the best of his knights are dead, Guinevere is in a convent, and the fellowship of the Round Table, the "high order of knighthood," is irrevocably broken."
After reading the essay it sure makes Tennyson's last lines about the Lady from Lancelot perfect.
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
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Whoops forgot the link to the two page essay - tip - lots of annoying ads that pop in - you can easily get rid of them and when you change the page they come up again so you have to get rid of them again - you can even get rid of the top banner ads.
http://members.tripod.com/Snyder_AMDG/Annie1.html (http://members.tripod.com/Snyder_AMDG/Annie1.html)
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Oh that's a good point, nlhome! The mirrors and their reflective ability at the time.
She may have, now that you mention it, just been dazzled by the true image. I can't imagine having the will power never to look out a window!
Barbara, that's an interesting article, very very long. What I got out of it was Arthur is a literary creation, did that occur to you, too? It simply made no sense otherwise. It's a symbol as Andrea says.
So it was an ideal, which shifted, if I read that right, thank you for bringing that here.
That makes Lancelot's involvement even less probable.
And if you watch the horse training tape I doubt sincerely he could hear anything approaching singing over the horse footfalls and the bells. He was a moving nickelodeon.
My thoughts are that there's a strain here between fact and the willing suspension of belief of fiction.
If it's a fairy tale it certainly ends badly. If it's a statement about women in Victorian England it certainly carries the message to stay in your place and be content with what you have.
If it's a statement about all that's ideal it's a disappointment but look when he wrote it. I've enjoyed all the background info and thoughts you've all brought, including the religious angle Halcyon asked.
Knights in armor are impressive. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has several centerpieces of Knights in armor on life size horses also in armor and they are pretty darn amazing. Forget they were so heavy they had to be hoisted on these gigantic horses, not too much chance of romance there, if they are kitted out and riding.
(http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mao85qVY8E1qhp1gp.jpg)
Any horse and rider who goes by is impressive, whether it's a policeman or a Knight going to Camelot on the quest for goodness and honor and the Holy Grail. (I can't see those last two words without thinking Monty Python).
The reality must have been totally different. I agree with Andrea that it's an abstract concept and perhaps this, also: Or is this all an escape by Tennyson?
I think it may be. That doesn't mean it's not enjoyable to read. I never understood the Victorians and that "I die for love" stuff, and here it is again. The lessons from it in 2015 are not very reassuring, are they? It possibly must be necessary to understand the Victorians themselves in depth, which I don't, to really understand the poem. It seems to me to be one thing missing here which we have not talked about or seen which is the key.
But she did take the chance and I wonder if or when she realized she was doomed in the undertaking? Maybe the cold? But she went on her way anyway..boy it's hard when the dream dies, isn't it? And you need to be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. And really where WAS she going and for what purpose? She wrote her name ON the boat in the 2nd version and carried a parchment in the first, so she knew she was not going to be partaking of the lights and the joy she wanted. How sad it is.
Had she stayed she could have been busy and singing, but Andrea says that's no life at all. Better take the chance.
So in conclusion what do you think of the Lady?
The poor thing, I feel sorry for her, she's dammed if she does, and dammed if she doesn't.
I guess we need to be wrapping this one up and calling for last thoughts as it ends on the 28th and this is the 24th.
I have so enjoyed your wonderful comments, and the vigorous discussions here!! Thank you for your generosity in offering them!
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Befuddled. Someone said they were becoming more and more befuddled. What I believe about the Lady changes daily, depending on the mood I'm in I would guess. Maybe existing was living to her. Maybe she had the most dysfunctional family in the whole of the kingdom and waited for a stormy day knowing she would perish and show them! How did she even know Sir Lancelot was Sir Lancelot? I read that there were so many syllables in each line so maybe Tennyson just used his words to come up with the right amount of syllables. At first I pooh poohed Ginny's idea of hypothermia because it seemed too 21st century, too scientific to have happened in fairy tale times and, being brought up in the Adirondacks near Canada, I am sometimes unrealistic about weather. Then I read this on Live Science:
Death without freezing
An unusually low body temperature is called hypothermia, and the average person will usually not experience this during a stint in the cold, Castellani said. But if you're wet and cold, it’s a different story, since your body loses heat about 25 times faster in water than in air, according to Michael Sawka, chief of the Thermal & Mountain Medicine Division at USARIEM.
People can even develop hypothermia at temperatures above freezing if it's raining.
Normal core body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and mild hypothermia sets in at about 95 degrees F. After that, "as you start dropping [in temperature], bad things happen," Sawka said.
At 91 degrees F, you can experience amnesia.
At 82 degrees you can lose consciousness
Below 70 degrees F, you are said to have profound hypothermia and death can occur, Sawka said.
The record for the lowest body temperature at which an adult has been known to survive is 56.7 degrees F, which occurred after the person was sumgered in cold, icy water for quite some time, according to Castellani.
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I like Jonathon's opinion that it's a whodunit. Speaking of whodunits, Ginny you asked why I was reading about the Ojibwa. William Kent Krueger writes a mystery series that centers around the Ojibwa culture. Very interesting so I started reading about them. funny how whatever you're reading can be applied to so many different times and cultures. Love it.
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I still hang on to my earliest understanding of the poem - yes, a fairy tale but then till the very late nineteenth century most poems were to be read as a window of truths and emotions - Romantic poetry - rather than as a literary story or explaining a happening or a political, social, and economic, concern that is more popular after Tennyson.
We read over and over how Tennyson was on the cusp fighting with the change in poetry that coincided with the Industrial Revolution. He preferred the older Romantic viewpoint for his work. And like any fairytale we know the characters are not only make believe but they usually represent something - To me the way to think of this is like when we see on TV or on paper a large muscled bald man in a white tee shirt, we know he is an image for a cleaning product - and even as children reading Red Riding Hood we knew a wolf does not talk or hide in grandma's night clothes after acting as a wild animal and eating the grandmother.
And so the Arthur stories, like so many myths of many cultures - have a meaning beyond the obvious story - as in her earlier post, Halcyon recollected a Native American myth - Some of the early myths, hundreds of years before Rome came to British Isles, these old stories are symbolic tales of cultural values, loyalty, sacrifice and death, redemption, bravery etc. etc.
Tucked in my reservoir are symbols and their meaning that others may not have had similar associations - all I can do is share what I see in this poem - my viewpoint is not right or wrong - it is not meant to take away from anyone's interpretation of the symbols Tennyson used in this myth poem.
It may help to understand my philosophical education was less of Thomas Aquinas and his duality between essence and existence and therefore, having to prove the existence of God but rather, more of Mister Eckhart who says, that in God there is an intelligence which precedes being, existence and understanding are the same and we, as rational creatures, are gifted with a spiritual soul. Both Thomas and Mister Eckhart were philosophers 200 years before Luther and are studied in schools today as thinkers from a common Christian philosophy.
In one of his many papers Mister Eckhart has a beautiful description of the souls connection to God - so wondrous is the description it sends chills up your spine. And in the spirit of that understanding this poem can be one of Salvation, Regeneration, Passing into the life of the spirit, Justified by faith, that is included in the Arthur myths.
The reapers reaping barley, the grain of bread that is the symbol for the Body of Christ.
She looks into the mirror, as the eyes are the window to the soul so, the mirror reflects back to us Justice. In the language of Scripture, Justice means not only that great moral virtue which gives everyone his due, but it represents a perfect state of soul, the perfection, the completion of all virtues.
And in this mirror she sees Lancelot - not the human sexual man but the symbol of the glorious container for God's virtues as were the characteristics of a knight. The way Tennyson describes him it is not hard to see the likeness to a Monstrance - that holds the host, the symbolic body of Christ, displayed during the holiest of ceremonies like on Holy Thursday.
A photo - (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Monstrans.jpg)
She, surrounded by the Lily, symbol of the Annunciation, goes to the water, in Celtic culture, access to the other world, in Christian culture, regeneration, Baptism, born of the Spirit. Enters a boat, the church, the ark, the ship of salvation also in Celtic lore, Manannan who sailed without sail or oars - here is a bit about the Celtic God Manannan
http://manannan.net/whois/index.html (http://manannan.net/whois/index.html)
She floats in a river, a rite of passage from one state to another, in song, the harmony of the sphere of life, sailing through a cold rainy night, the creative power in spiritual darkness, to her death, which symbolically death simply means death to the earthy life preceding the spiritual life, which is the core of our sacraments, Baptism, Holy Communion, and so forth according to if you are Anglican as Tennyson or seeing the symbolism as a Catholic.
As she floats past the walled garden, field of the souls, onto The kingdom of Camelot, the bright, idealized city which could only have been found in legend, where Lancelot, in his goodness says, "God in his mercy lend her grace." Which goes back the Eckhart who says, God gives us grace and that grace is what the soul rides on as a direct link to God.
There are many more bits and pieces that can be understood from this myth but those are the highlights to give the symbolic message of this poem that is beneath the Aquinas like existence of the storyline. I have so enjoyed this discussion because I did see the differences between Aquinas and Eckhart play out as this, yep another long one, essay speaks... http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/drazenovich-eckhart.shtml (http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/drazenovich-eckhart.shtml)
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That's glorious, Barb. Tennyson would see a kindred spirit in you. I'm eager to get to the link on Eckhart. He does take one out of this world. Or should I say he transforms it?
It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that hypothermia killed The Lady. But it has to be ruled out. I'm certain that Tennyson would be miffed by the suggestion. For the simple reason that there is no poetry in hypothermia
She died for love. Of course it's heartbreaking that she never lived to meet Lancelot or enjoy Camelot. If she did die of the cold, then I would have to think that Tennyson just liked the sound of Camelot and it provided the refrain that a good ballad must have. And Lancelot and Shalott make good rhymes.
Come to think of it, 'tower and balcony, garden wall and gallery', and floating 'between the houses high' have me wondering if this isn't Venice in which The Lady finds herself.
And then there are the landscapes: "Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Thro' the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river....'
Why did it have to turn cold? I can't forgive Tennyson.
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To everything there is a season, Jonathan!
Barb- that was brilliantly written ahhh a baptism of sorts; the rite of passage. What beautiful symbolism that depicts. Thank you, it would never have crossed my mind. I love it!
"Tucked in my reservoir are symbols and their meaning that others may not have had similar associations - all I can do is share what I see in this poem - my viewpoint is not right or wrong - it is not meant to take away from anyone's interpretation of the symbols Tennyson used in this myth poem. "
AMEN!
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Well!!! You have certainly done this short poem proud!! Such interpretations and such input, I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring this poem with you all!!
I agree with all of you and none of you really. I agree with Halcyon that "What I believe about the Lady changes daily, depending on the mood I'm in I would guess. "
Me too.
How did she even know Sir Lancelot was Sir Lancelot? I don't think she did, but the all seeing 3rd person narrator did, and we never explained who he or she was?
Then Barbara comes up with the creative take of the day: "I still hang on to my earliest understanding of the poem - yes, a fairy tale but then till the very late nineteenth century most poems were to be read as a window of truths and emotions - Romantic poetry - rather than as a literary story or explaining a happening or a political, social, and economic, concern that is more popular after Tennyson. "
And that's compelling, too. It may very well be just a fairy tale, we read them every day, I'm reading one now, which is a horror/ sci fi thing and yes they always symbolize something. I really admire your handling of that set of metaphors.
As Andrea said,
Thank you, it would never have crossed my mind. I love it!
I do too, in literary criticism you can postulate any theory you like if if the poem backs it up.
And I really do enjoy trying to figure out what things mean, because we all do that every time we read a book. This was a good selection for that purpose because there are no answers, not really. You can find people passionately staking their reputations on their interpretation but, they disagree.
There are a lot of things I still don't know about the poem. Who is the narrator, does it matter, whence comes the curse ( I think she made it up and convinced herself of it), why did she go about going to Camelot in the dark cold rain, why the descriptions of the people of Camelot? Was that "the world goes on when tragedy strikes" type of thing or something else?
Jonathan, what a hoot on the hypothermia. " I'm certain that Tennyson would be miffed by the suggestion. For the simple reason that there is no poetry in hypothermia. "
"She died for love.
Why did it have to turn cold? I can't forgive Tennyson."
hahaha, that's the rub, isn't it? And note not only cold but wet, you need both. He's no fool, he knows you don't die "for love," even tho it apparently was a popular theme in Victorian England, when you're finally getting what you wanted or think you wanted. Maybe the excitement killed her. Maybe she was an excitable person.
I personally love trying to figure things out. I mean it IS written in English, we should know what's said, right? And as Halcyon says, you read something one place and it applies to so many other things.
There are a lot of things I still don't understand about the poem or the Victorians, but I sure have enjoyed trying, and hearing everybody's diverse but always exciting opinions.
Thank you all so much for your input and super ideas!
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And thank you, Ginny, for choosing it for discussion. It's a fantastic bit of poetry. It has everything. What really brought that home for me was your...'close up of the Japanese Horses decked out for their parade takes my breath away - the color - the decoration - fabulous.' In post 171.
Couldn't the same thing be said for the poem? It's as richly caparisoned with objects and symbols. What a scene. What a word picture. The river with its island. The fields of barley. The lilies. The reaper. The Knight. The lovers in the moonlight. The Lady. The curse. And, of course, the mirror.
nlhome's post on the mirror (173) brought a shock of recognition. Or was it an alert. This was no ordinary mirror. We're told. The Lady weaves 'the mirror's magic sights.' Followed by the strangest lines: 'For often thro' the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, went to Camelot. Does the Lady have a death wish?
And here's the payoff. The biography I'm reading quotes Tennyson as saying:
'Poetry is like shot-silk with many glancing colours. Every reader must find her own interpretation according to her ability, and according to her sympathy with the poet.'
And about the Idyll Lancelot and Elaine, written years later, the author says 'the poem is in part a revisiting of The Lady of Shalott.' For him, no doubt, like revisiting a trance. It was all so lovely. It was, after all, a magic mirror.
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Thank you, Ginny, for leading the discussion. It sure was fun!
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Cannot believe it is the end of the month already and the end of this discussion - as usual Ginny you really give us lots to chew on when you lead a discussion - love it - and the heading links - the Haunting and beautiful Lureen Mckenna made me want to dig out my two CDs of her singing - neither has this hymn to the Lady and it is lovely - and then the quiz from the Met was a real coup - - -
With so many bitter cold and stormy nights during our read time it was easy to wonder if we would die - well not really but sure gave impact to the story. Like Jonathan the photos of the Japanese horses was a gift as well as acknowledging each of us who all shared such diverse interpretations of the poem - great job - thanks - of course I enjoyed it - I love not only poetry but the romantics bring me to another level of light and airy being.
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Thank you Ginny, et.al., for a wonderful discussion. We'll have to go this again sometime.
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Many thanks to you, Ginny, for taking the reins on this assignment. As usual, you have added an immense I terest and fun to the discussion. Nobody can lead a discussion like you, I truly have missed being here in this wonderful group. I'm off to find Lancelot I my kitchen.
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Well here we are to wrap up our short but eminently enjoyable discussion of The Lady of Shalott, and aren't you all kind? Thank you so much for all the generosity you showed during the discussion in really making the effort to discuss the issues and bringing in such points of your own. Certainly quite a few of them would never have occurred to me, and my own experience was much richer for it.
I have to say I have tremendously enjoyed this experience, thanks to you. If one is going to meet with friends as I hope we all are, to discuss a book in one's living room, one hopes that (1) the group has actually read the book ...(those of you in face to face discussions know what I'm talking about)...(2) somebody will dare, will take the plunge, and it IS a plunge, somebody will be brave enough, to talk about how they really feel about the themes in the book and (3) that it will be an enjoyable experience for all.
I think, thanks to your inestimable help, we met those goals, in spades.
I won't say we reinvented literary theory or the wheel. We didn't offer a course in Victorian Poetry, and that wasn't our intention.
I just wanted to enjoy the experience and I agree, it was fun. I looked forward to coming in every day and seeing what you all had to say, and then going away and thinking about it. I'm still thinking about some of the points you made.
I will say I tremendously enjoyed each and every person's input. Do I think differently about the Lady?
I think I do. I haven't seen this thing for years and have never read it as closely as we did. It stood up to the end, stubbornly insisting on its mystery and its integrity. Most of my days are spent trying to make parallels between writings 2000 years old and our modern world, so this one should have been a push over, and it wasn't. I loved that. I like mystery, I like fantasy, I like myth, and I like a good discussion and cordial exchange of opinion, and this one was full of it.
Yes, let's do do it again sometime, I've also missed this experience, and thank you ALL, each and every one of you, for making it the enjoyable journey it was. :)
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Thank you, everybody. I would never have believed that a hundred or two lines of poetry could make for so much lively comment. Yes, let's do it again sometime. And another lady.
How about Alexander Pope's The Rape Of The Lock?
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:) What on earth made you think of that?
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;) "I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again." Anais Nin
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What an intriguing quote, Barb. I like it.
When I looked up Anais Nin, I found this one which often seems so true.
"When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with."
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Thanks, Barb, for supplying me with the answer to Ginny's question: Why The Rape Of The Lock?
Anais Nin felt immortal longings when she said, 'My hair is being pulled by the stars again.' And that isjust what happens in the poem. Belinda's stolen lock of hair is whisked off by heavenly agents and is forever shining among the stars. That's how the story ends:
'This Lock, the Muse shall concecrate to fame, And midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.'
Never does it seem more fateful than to have it seen that hair is a woman's crowning glory. The little lock looked just too beautiful and with a snip of the tiny scissors...the consequences are given a classical treatment by the poet. Pope had just translated Homer's Iliad. That's the one I read when I was young. I was intrigued. What else, I wondered, has this poet written. Now I see an epic in the night sky.
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That goes to show you haw ignorant I am of poetry. I never read The Rape of Lock, so I didn't catch the inference. I looked it up. A satirical poem. Might be fun to read with a group such as ours.
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It took Ginny to see that this short poem had enough in it to keep us going for a month. Thank you,everyone.
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Goodness, isn't that interesting? I think we could discuss anything, to tell you the truth, and tremendously enjoy it. I am a fool for "series," anything in a series, maybe we can do a series of poems, who knows? Maybe themes...so many delightful possibilities and such fun provided.... Thank you, Pat, I do appreciate the input of each of you! (I like Schmoop. Do you consider it "giving up?" to use it? What a question!
Hope to see you all again in the future!
:)