I heart Tennyson
{beautiful photographs by Paul de Luna who is inspiring me like mad and you will definitely be seeing more of… via Coco+Kelley}
So,The Lady of Shalott.
I had the best seminar ever on this poem, and on Mariana, yesterday. My word, Tennyson was a genius. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Tennyson. Red in tooth and claw? Also Tennyson. He is a veritable hero of poetry.
Mainly we talked about whether or not Mariana and The Lady were exploited women in stereotypical roles… abandoned by mankind, alone, unhappy, doomed.
In The Lady of Shalott the heroine’s doom comes about because of Lancelot: it’s all pinned on him. She sees him from her tower and just gives up her life. Now all my seminar pals took this to mean Lancelot is some kind of patriarchal oppressor who effectively killed The Lady by being a chauvinist. Basically.
I disagree. Sorry, but Lancelot is sort of my hero. He can’t be faulted for not seeing The Lady, because he was so blinded by his love for Guinevere. Had he gone up to the tower and romanced The Lady, all we feminists would be tearing him to shreds for giving up on Guinevere so easily. Besides, his words at the end of the poem, ‘she has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace’ don’t smack of a kind of ‘wow she’s a hottie, shame she’s dead’ kind of sentiment, but rather a sincere esteem - it’s ‘lovely’ he says, as in ‘worthy of love’, rather than ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful.’
Plus, check out Lancelot. I’m pretty sure I would feel a bit doomed if I saw him riding through the fields and knew he couldn’t be mine:
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to 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
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
