The Lady of Shalott is a lyrical ballad about a woman living alone in a tower on the secluded Ise of Shalott that is upriver from the great kingdom of Camelot. The poem pulls from many different stories in legends. Camelot, where it takes place, sleeping beauty from the tower and spindle, Arachne, and Penolpe (Odyessiouse’s wife) with the weaving. The Lady of Shallot is not allowed to look down at Camelot; she is forced to look through the reflection of her mirror or else be cursed.
The relationship between beauty and death in The Lady of Shalott is looked at through the lens of nature. \u201cwaterlilly, daffodilly, and water chilly\u201d is the soft, flowy language used at the beginning of the poem. This is supplemented by the alliteration found at the end of each stanza. As the poem gets darker, the reaper is introduced, foreshadowing the wilting and eventual death of The Lady of Shalott. \u201cI am half sick of shadows,\u201d says the Lady of Shalott, looking longingly down at Camelot. The straw that breaks the camel’s back is when she glimpses Sir Lancelot. So desperate for connection, she watches him and hears his song. This delusion causes her to look out at him, and her mirror cracks. Like most women in Victorian literature, her life is ruined by a man. As she floats down to Camelot, she morphs into this creature. \u201c…steady stony glance\u2026bold seer in a trance\u2026Mute, with glassy countenance.\u201d this reminded me of Dracula and Lucy\u2019s transformation into this sultry evil woman. As Lady Shalott dies, she is compared to a dying swan, which symbolizes the death of her innocence. Her features sharpen as she sings her death song, and people fear her. It is only when Sir Lancelot redeems her is she finally accepted.
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The Lady of Shalott is a lyrical ballad about a woman living alone in a tower on the secluded Ise of Shalott that is upriver from the great kingdom of Camelot. The poem pulls from many different stories in legends. Camelot, where it takes place, sleeping beauty from the tower and spindle, Arachne, and Penolpe … Continue reading The Unjust Death of Victorian Women<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5364,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5364"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}