Alfred Tennyson

The Lady of Shalott

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold, and meet the sky.
And thro' the field the road runs by

Camelot's distance

Every stanza in Part I ends with 'Camelot' or 'Shalott'—the rhyme scheme physically separates her island from Arthur's court throughout the poem.

To manytowered Camelot.
The yellowleavèd waterlily,
The green-sheathèd daffodilly,
Tremble in the water chilly,
Round about Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens shiver,
The sunbeam-showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island in the river,
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
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

Fairy rumors

The reapers think she's supernatural because they only hear her, never see her. She's already becoming a legend before anything happens.

Lady of Shalott."
The little isle is all inrailed
With a rose-fence, and overtrailed
With roses: by the marge unhailed
The shallop flitteth silkensailed,
Skimming down to Camelot.
A pearlgarland winds her head:
She leaneth on a velvet bed,
Full royally apparellèd,
The Lady of Shalott.
PART THE SECOND.
No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmèd web she weaves alway.

The curse revealed

First mention of the curse—but notice Tennyson never explains who cursed her or why. This isn't that kind of story.

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.
She lives with little joy or fear.
Over the water, running near,
The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.
Before her hangs a mirror clear,

Mirror mechanics

She watches Camelot in a mirror while weaving what she sees. She's creating art from secondhand experience—a metaphor Tennyson uses for the artist's isolation.

Reflecting tower'd Camelot.
And as the mazy web she whirls,
She sees the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market-girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or longhair'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to towered Camelot.
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue,
The knights come riding, two and two.
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights:
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, came from Camelot.
Or, when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers, lately wed:

Breaking point

After watching funerals and newlyweds pass by, she finally admits discontent. 'Shadows' = the mirror reflections that are her only reality.

"I am half-sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART THE THIRD.
A bowshot from her bower-eaves.
He rode between the barley-sheaves:
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Lancelot's armor

The poem's rhythm speeds up here—Lancelot gets 9 stanzas of blazing description. His 'brazen greaves' (leg armor) catch sunlight like a signal flare.

Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A redcross knight for ever kneeled
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glittered free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle-bells rang merrily,
As he rode down from Camelot.
And from his blazon'd baldric slung,
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And, as he rode, his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather,
Thickjewelled shone the saddle-leather.
The helmet, and the helmet-feather
Burned like one burning flame together,
As he rode down from Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over green Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed.
On burnished hooves his war-horse trode.
From underneath his helmet flowed
His coalblack curls, as on he rode,
As he rode down from Camelot.
From the bank, and from the river,
He flashed into the crystal mirror,

Lancelot's song

'Tirra lirra' is nonsense—a tuneless song. He's thoughtless, casual, unaware he's destroying someone. The banality matters.

"Tirra lirra, tirra lirra,"
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web: she left the loom:
She made three paces thro' the room:

Three paces

The poem slows to count her steps. After 100+ lines of confinement, her movement toward the window is the dramatic climax.

She saw the waterflower bloom:
She saw the helmet and the plume:
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web, and floated wide,
The mirror cracked from side to side,
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
PART THE FOURTH.

Weather shift

Part IV opens with a storm—the sunny Camelot of Part III is gone. Tennyson changes the weather to match her doom.

In the stormy eastwind straining
The pale-yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over towered Camelot:
Outside the isle a shallow boat
Beneath a willow lay afloat,
Below the carven stern she wrote,
The Lady of Shalott.
A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight.
All raimented in snowy white
That loosely flew, (her zone in sight,
Clasped with one blinding diamond bright,)
Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot,
Though the squally eastwind keenly
Blew, with folded arms serenely
By the water stood the queenly
Lady of Shalott.
With a steady, stony glance—
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Beholding all his own mischance,
Mute, with a glassy countenance—
She looked down to Camelot.
It was the closing of the day,
She loosed the chain, and down she lay,
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
As when to sailors while they roam,
By creeks and outfalls far from home,
Rising and dropping with the foam,
From dying swans wild warblings come,

Swan song

Dying swans were believed to sing once before death. Tennyson makes the metaphor literal—she's both swan and singer.

Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
Still as the boathead wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her chanting her deathsong,
The Lady of Shalott.
A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her eyes were darkened wholly,
And her smooth face sharpened slowly
Turned to towered Camelot:
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the waterside,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By gardenwall and gallery,
A pale, pale corpse she floated by,
Deadcold, between the houses high,
Dead into towered Camelot.
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
To the plankèd wharfage came:
Below the stern they read her name,
"The Lady of Shalott."
They cross'd themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire and guest.

Her message

The parchment on her breast contains her own words. Even dead, she controls her story—the 'wellfed wits' at Camelot are baffled.

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."
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Artist Trapped by Art

Tennyson wrote this in 1832, during a crisis about poetry's purpose. The Lady weaving what she sees in a mirror is his metaphor for the artist's dilemma: create art from life, or live life directly? She's cursed to experience the world only as reflection, turning it into her web (art). The moment she chooses direct experience—looking at real Camelot instead of its mirror image—her art literally unravels and she dies.

The mirror is crucial. Medieval weavers actually used mirrors to check their work's reverse side, but Tennyson makes it her only window to reality. She weaves 'the mirror's magic sights'—she's creating art about art, copies of copies. This is what Tennyson feared: becoming so absorbed in poetic craft that you lose touch with actual human experience.

'I am half-sick of shadows' is the turning point. After watching funerals and weddings pass—life's major events—through glass, she admits her existence is insufficient. The phrase 'half-sick' is perfect: she's not fully committed to rebellion yet, just tired. When Lancelot appears, he's pure sensory overload after her gray isolation: his armor 'rang,' his bridle 'glittered,' he sang (badly). She doesn't fall in love with him—she falls in love with the idea of unmediated reality.

The poem asks: was breaking the curse worth it? She gets three paces of freedom, one glimpse of real Camelot, then dies singing. Tennyson doesn't answer. He wrote this after his best friend Arthur Hallam died, when he was questioning whether making beautiful things mattered if you withdrew from life to do it. The Lady chooses life over art and it kills her—but she also finally becomes real to Camelot, no longer just a disembodied voice the reapers hear.

How the Poem Sounds

This is a ballad on steroids—Tennyson takes a folk form (simple rhymes, repeated refrains) and makes it hypnotic. Each nine-line stanza follows the same pattern: AAAABCCCB, with lines 5 and 9 always ending in 'Camelot' or 'Shalott.' Reading it aloud, you feel trapped in the pattern just like she's trapped in her tower. The rhyme scheme is the curse made audible.

Tennyson uses repetition like a spell. 'The Lady of Shalott' ends nearly every stanza—her name becomes a refrain, an incantation. Words repeat within stanzas too: 'weave/weaving/weaveth,' 'mirror/mirrored,' 'Camelot/Camelot/Camelot.' This is obsessive, circular. Nothing progresses until Part III when Lancelot breaks the pattern with 'Tirra lirra'—actual song, not repetition.

Watch how the rhythm changes with Lancelot. The poem suddenly fills with active verbs and bright images: 'dazzling,' 'flamed,' 'sparkled,' 'glittered,' 'burned.' His nine stanzas move faster than anything before—Tennyson piles on details until Lancelot seems almost ridiculous, over-described, a blazing meteor of masculine energy crashing into her gray world. Then Part IV slows down again, back to the poem's funeral pace.

The final stanza's parchment is Tennyson showing off. After 180+ lines of third-person narration, we finally hear her voice: 'this is I, / The Lady of Shalott.' She names herself. The poem has been calling her 'the Lady' the whole time—now she claims the title directly. It's a tiny rebellion, but it means she dies as a subject, not an object.