Alternate Reality of the Lady of Shalott

Abstract

The Lady of Shalott is considered to be one of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s masterpieces. The poem conversely demonstrates art and life, the aesthetic and the political, are fully interwoven: the involvement in the social world which is symbolically the destination of the Lady in the poem. The Lady who is the emblem of such an artwork can be ascribed qualities, for instance, self-containment, objectified otherness, removal from the fluidity of life, and participation in a higher order of existence, for which it is autonomy. Kermode points out that “the Romantic artwork often identifies itself with an emblematic image of autonomy and femininity”, inextricably interlinked. Her mirror shows her only “Shadows of the world”. The Lady’s web flies “Out” and floats “wide” when she “turns round” with “that desire of making an impression upon another mind”, when she seeks to address Lancelot. The mirror reconnects the Lady’s art to the real world beyond her window. Though the artist is unable to see it during the process of production, her artistic web, once out in a wider space than the tower and freed from the loom, is a true representation of outward things, the actions, and events of Camelot. This paper examines that the traditional referentiality of Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ can be better understood by supplementing the poet’s medieval sources, of little more than tangential relevance to the poem, with Homeric influences. The poem is similar to a fairytale, however, I have given an alternate reality of the Lady of Shallot in my version of a fairytale, where the characters remain the same but the fairytale takes a happy ending rather than a tragic death. My version is different from Tennyson’s since I believe the lady deserves to be jovial. Sir Lancelot was unaware of her fascination and feelings for him, as she could hardly express her feelings due to her imprisonment. She is so taken by him that she stops her work and looks at Camelot, though she risks the mysterious curse. The mirror breaks and her web magically floats out of the window on its own. She realizes that she is cursed.