Lady of Shalott, The~ by Alfred Lord Tennyson~ February 9-28

[ginny]

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 )

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

~A comparison of editions:  1833 and 1842 by The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester

~ Elaine of Astolat links

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

~ A wonderful page on the Lady by a pathologist with a very clever way of comparing the editions.

Discussion Leader: ginny

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 and enjoy finding out!

[ginny]

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.

[Jonathan]

 


'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.

[Jonathan]

Just saw your post, Ginny. Be back later with a comment.

[PatH]

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.

[PatH]

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?

[ALF43]

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?

[Halcyon]

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?

[BarbStAubrey]

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.

[Halcyon]

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?

[Frybabe]

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.

[ginny]

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? 

[nlhome]

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.

[JoanK]

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.

[JoanK]

" 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?

[BarbStAubrey]

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


Rather than the loom most of us know that are used in places like Barea College


I wonder if our Lady from Shalott was working on a loom that looked more like this one.

[BarbStAubrey]

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.

[ginny]

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.....

[ginny]

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?

[Jonathan]

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'.

[Halcyon]

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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[JoanK]

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?

[ALF43]

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.

[bluebird24]

http://www.maryjones.us/jce/shalott.html

There are paintings and pictures here.

[BarbStAubrey]

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.  

[BarbStAubrey]

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...

[Halcyon]

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

[ginny]

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..

[ginny]

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!!

[ginny]

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.

[Halcyon]

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. 

[ginny]

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!~ 

[BarbStAubrey]

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.

[BarbStAubrey]

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...

[ALF43]

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 .

[Halcyon]

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?

[BarbStAubrey]

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.

[Halcyon]

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.

[PatH]

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.

[PatH]

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."