To weave..."  See in text (Text of the Poem). "She knows not what the curse may be..."  The repetition of “whispers” plays off the whisper of the reaper in the previous stanza, expanding the theme of supernatural influences on the Lady.

Beyond her physical isolation, the Lady is also isolated from her own humanity. Your IP: 45.56.83.179 | If the Lady stops weaving in order to look out at Camelot, the unknown curse will activate. This line details people leaving Shalott, not simply moving around it.

Still, the idea of love, even unspoken love, is so crucial to this entire plot.

In this instance, the knights of Camelot are invoking a blessing out of fear that the Lady’s corpse is a bad omen or evil presence that they need divine protection from. In both instances in which someone directly reacts to the Lady, it is with a sense of fear or awe: the reapers dub her a “fairy” and the knights of Camelot cross themselves out of fear.

At the beginning of the story, she “delights” in this work and has no other cares but her art. In Tennyson’s time, Victorian women, especially those of the upper classes, were expected to remain chaste and avoid any behaviors that might result in rumors of impropriety.

Symbolically, Camelot represents the outside world and freedom. This is a tricky one, since no one in "The Lady of Shalott" admits to being in love. •

The Lady of Shalott (1832) By Alfred, Lord Tennyson About this Poet More than any other Victorian-era writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. Because the curse is not well-defined to readers, it is difficult to tell how much control the Lady has over her actions once it has been invoked.

This required the poet to retain a certain distance from society in order to maintain the purity of the artistic soul.

Images of isolation recur throughout the poem, serving to emphasize the loneliness of the Lady and characterize her situation. Freedom Comes at a Cost: Regardless of the lens with which readers approach “The Lady of Shalott,” the concept of freedom is a recurrent end goal. Although she's alone, and not too happy about it, the Lady of Shalott does have two things to keep her busy. See in text (Text of the Poem).

Her declaration that she is tired of seeing only “shadows” of the world opens up the interpretation that she may be reconsidering her situation and waiting for something worth looking at. Her situation in this respect can be read as a commentary on unquestioning adherence to rules. This reading portrays the Lady as a working artist, whose artistic sensibility isolates her from the world around her but allows her a pure relationship with her weaving that provides a happiness of its own. She is the one who must make the choice between continuing her lonely existence or taking a risk and claiming a moment of freedom. The perception of the supernatural serves as a barrier between the Lady and human connection, isolating her not only physically but also conceptually.

It is often accompanied by a quick prayer or invocation to God.

This description of the Lady as being “in a trance” and having “a glassy countenance” seems to imply that she is still under the effect of an external power—especially as “glassy” relates back to the image of her mirror, destroyed by the curse—but she could also be reacting to the major emotional upheaval that would naturally follow the destruction of her artistic work.

The Victorian age was not, by and large, especially sympathetic to art and artists. To “cross” oneself is to trace the shape of the Christian cross across one’s head or upper body using the hand. See in text (Text of the Poem). The price of looking out the window at Camelot, as the Lady finds out, is death. While the content of the previous stanza would imply that Lancelot is the cause for her departure from her weaving, here he is reduced to merely an object, seen after the water-lily and before Camelot itself.

Her weaving is destroyed, possibly thrown from the tower, and the mirror she has used to watch the world cracks through the middle; she implicitly attributes these events to the onset of her curse. Thus Camelot takes on an unattainable quality since it can be seen and sought after, but not touched or truly experienced with the other senses. Tennyson himself wrote several ruminations on the conflict between aesthetic isolation and social involvement. Lancelot’s omission here highlights the ambiguity in the Lady’s motivation. See in text (Text of the Poem). "She loosed the chain, and down she lay;..." 

"the silent isle imbowers..." 

Readers are not told what the terms of the curse are and the Lady herself does not even know where it came from.

See in text (Text of the Poem).

Tennyson loops back again and again to the fields and trees and flowers that surround the island of Shalott.

See in text (Text of the Poem). The reapers, or field harvesters, see in the Lady a supernatural air and compare her to a fairy. “The Lady of Shalott” is a departure from this tradition in that Lancelot is more of an object to observe than an active agent in the story. This could be an act of atonement for her misdeed or perhaps a factor of the curse. Rather than being received warmly by the world, the Lady is again perceived as a supernatural presence and the people of Camelot react with fear, cementing her isolation even in death.

She spends her days weaving a “magic web” based on the sights she sees in her mirror, a kind of supernatural craft. She weaves and she sings.

The image of a lady locked away in a castle or tower has strong ties to the tradition of medieval romances and usually portends the coming of a rescuer. Scholars often view “The Lady of Shalott” and “The Palace of Art,” which were both originally published in Tennyson’s 1832 collection Poems, as records of his conflicting views on the same topic.

Tennyson’s rhetorical questions reinforce the Lady’s isolation.

The “delight” she feels could be a thematic reference to the satisfaction of the artistic process, regardless of the imposed distance from her subject.

One of the poet's best-known works, its vivid medieval romanticism and enigmatic symbolism inspired many painters, especially the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers. "the river eddy whirls. "Pass onward..." 

"Came two young lovers lately wed;..."  "Camelot: ..." 

See in text (Text of the Poem). For many Victorian authors, writing poetry was more of an intellectual pursuit than an emotional one. The Lady experiences the outside world through her mirror, and the level of emotional disassociation it causes renders all sights equal to her eyes. It's a really old story. Many Victorians believed that poetry had had its day and Lancelot is shown in the Lady’s mirror.

It can also be seen as a criticism of superstition and unfounded belief, ways of understanding the world that eroded in the wake of the 18th-century Enlightenment.

When the Lady looks outside, her gaze first passes over the surrounding water lilies, flowers associated with purity. This is a literary device called synecdoche, where a part of something is used to symbolize the thing’s entirety.

The Lady is isolated in a tower and subject to a curse that tells her she cannot look at Camelot except in her mirror. While the curse condemning the Lady to weave without pause is arguably the inciting incident in the poem’s narrative, its source is vague. She then leaves her work, walks across her room, and looks outside. Discussion of themes and motifs in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott. This evokes the Victorian ideal of womanhood, which emphasized purity and required women to remain in the domestic sphere.

The loosing of the chain that ties her boat to land is a very overt symbol for the actions the Lady is taking to free herself from her island. See in text (Text of the Poem), In the Arthurian tradition, knights were adventuring heroes who went on quests and rescued fair maidens. Lady of Shalott."..." These details can combine with Lancelot’s suggestive song for an interpretation of the curse as a symbolic loss of innocence for the Lady, which would have resulted in social ruin during the Victorian era.

Symbolically, the river is connected with the flow of life and the passage of time, realities from which the Lady of Shalott is sheltered. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “The Lady Of Shalott” by Alfred Tennyson Baron Tennyson. The lack of detail allows the conflict of the story to be contained within the Lady herself. One of the possible interpretations of “The Lady of Shalott” is as an indictment of Victorian culture, which conflated women’s inherent value with their sexual purity. See in text (Text of the Poem). "She has heard a whisper say, "lilies..." 

This could relate to multiple themes, perhaps describing a woman doomed to a single course of action following her “fall,” or an artist who does not know how to live without the isolation of her work.

Based on the medieval La Damigella di Scalot, it tells the tragic story of Elaine of Astolat, a young noblewoman imprisoned in a tower up the river from Camelot. Browse Library, Teacher Memberships

The Lady of Shalott sees the castle only in her mirror rather than directly experiencing it. Even if no one sees her work, she's definitely an artist. In Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, lilies are a frequent symbol of both physical and spiritual purity. The Lady of Shalott."..." It is worth noting the specific sequence of events that occur in this section. See in text (Text of the Poem). See in text (Text of the Poem). Making the sign of the cross is a form of blessing and is often done prior to or during prayer. Ultimately, her great purity can be read as inseparable from her curse and her death. "a glassy countenance..."  She sees the water lilies, Lancelot (as signified by his helmet), and finally Camelot itself. While the Lady has lived what the Victorians would consider a pure and virtuous life, free from improper associations, she has also been prevented from experiencing life’s color or joy.

The funeral she watches lacks any emotional weight, appearing instead almost as a parade: “with plumes and lights / And music.” That funeral is then equated to the approach of “two young lovers,” arguably a more joyous sight. The essential idea is that she is restricted, unable to pursue something that she wants.

Tennyson makes sure to describe her vividly, from her “snowy white” robe to the “gleaming shape” she becomes in death, evoking images of white marble statues.

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