Analysis Of The Lady Of Shalott

Decent Essays
Reading the poem “The Lady of Shalott” by Lord Tennyson Alfred is akin to watching one of the many stories that Disney has made into movies throughout the years. There is a castle, a knight, and a lovely, but cursed, maiden named The Lady of Shalott. Aware that a curse rests upon her and will be released if she abandons her loom, The Lady of Shalott is content to sing as she weaves in her castle room that overlooks Camelot. Unaware of her plight, Sir Lancelot rides past her window in the castle and The Lady of Shalott, captivated by the sight of him in her mirror, leaves the loom to gaze upon him. The mirror breaks as she does so, and the curse is released upon her. The poem swiftly deviates from the classic Disney formula of happily ever …show more content…
It should be considered a narrative poem, as it tells a story, but falls short of being an epic poem as there is a lack of heroic events. All of the events are chronologically ordered and each part of the poem builds on the last sentence of the previous part. The last sentence of each of the four parts ends with one of the few phrases that we hear the characters speak aloud. For example, at the end of Part III The Lady Shalott cries “The curse is come upon me.” With the exception of five phrases uttered or sung by our characters, the entirety of the poem is narrated by a speaker that is seeming omniscient in their knowledge of the characters past and what each of the characters is experiencing. This third person narrative unfolds the poem in front of the reader much like watching a movie …show more content…
These three words alternate so that the B line is always one of the three, but it is not always in a consistent alternating pattern. Also note that each of these three of the alternating B words all end with a hard “t” sound. The AAAA and CCC lines all end in an imperfect rhyme where the final consonant is the same but the vowel sounds are different. An occasional simile is salted into the poem, but the majority of the poem is colorfully descriptive rather than full of similes and metaphors. My favorite simile was in Part III and described Lancelot 's horse tack, and depicts that “The gemmy bridle glittered free, Like to some branch of stars we see Hung in the golden Galaxy.” Lord Tennyson includes many euphony 's such as “On either side the river lie,” and “Long fields of barley and of rye.” These flowing sentences paired with the closed form of the poem make “The Lady of Shalott” a much more romantic telling of this Disney-esque

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Last Stop on Market Street is an award winning picture book about a little black boy called CJ and his grandmother who take the bus to work at a soup kitchen after church on Sundays. The author uses words and phrases very effectively within this book to really paint a picture of the city and it's people. At the beginning of this book the author uses figurative language to describe the air as smelling 'like freedom, but it also smelled like rain' this phrase goes a long way in identifying the setting as being beautiful and open, in addition, it also indicates the rain had just begun (Tunnell, 2015, p.18). Another example of the author using a phrase to tell the reader a lot of information is when CJ's Nana tells CJ that the tree's are drinking through a straw. CJ is aid to look for some time for a straw to no avail, the author uses this short passage to tell us that CJ is young and…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Love’s Labour’s Lost is, perhaps, Shakespeare’s most adventurous play, in terms of the language used. For years, scholars have been fascinated by the way Shakespeare plays with language in this script, pushing past its conventions and rules to transform words into art. In his 1965 essay, Love’s Labour’s Lost: A Wantoning with Words, James Calderwood explains that the language found in this play is unlike that of any other piece written by Shakespeare. Calderwood writes that the language used becomes “an autonomous symbolic system whose value, somewhat like that of pure mathematics, lies less in its relevance to reality than in its intrinsic fascination” (pg. 317). This fascination with language in Love’s Labour’s…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Brother Jonathan 's Lament for Sister Caroline (Poem) In the first stanza, it can be observed that “pride” in first line rhymes with “side” in the second line, and “glow” in the third line rhymes with “foe” in the fourth line. In addition, there are many examples of alliteration observed. “Passion” and “pride” in the first line, “stormy” and “sister” in the second line, “from” and “firmament” in the third line, and “face” and “foe” in the last line are all examples of alliteration in the first stanza.…

    • 1200 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is unassailable that Fairy tales are some of the most influential pieces of literature among children. Ever since the Renaissance, Fairy Tales have impacted Children by showing how to handle problems, by developing a child's imagination, and by teaching children how to develop emotional resilience. With their appeal to both adults and children and interesting themes, it is easy to see why various fairy tales have withstood the test of time. One of the iconic fairy tales that has truly withstood the test of time is “Beauty and the Beast”.…

    • 147 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Green Knight Rhetoric

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the author's rhetorical purpose is to teach us about Feminism and masculism. To show men are not the other actors. In most stories with a knight the man is always the main character, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the main character is Lady Bertilak. In the book there are many rhetorical patterns from bob and wheel to alliteration.…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Fairy Tales are an important means used to teach life’s basic truths to children. These stories contain deep moral beliefs that sculpt basic understanding of right and wrong for society. Throughout time they have been adapted to a more child friendly form, even so that the film industry now bases child-oriented movies on classic fairy tales. Fairy tales, such as Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”, appeal to a sense of romance, adventure, and the fight between good and evil. Society supports retelling the fairy tales because they support traditional moral values society desires its children to learn.…

    • 1291 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rhyme- In this poem the last word in each line at least rhymes with a different line. This happens in every stanza but the first and last stanza. In those stanzas two lines rhyme with each other using the words, “gold” and “cold.” Some words words are used more than once to rhyme with another word like “McGee,” “blow,” and remains.”…

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “A Knight’s Tale;” The Story of One And Everyman Many medieval stories were meant to be told to large audiences of common and noble folk alike and as such, these poems and songs had to be relatable enough that the listeners belonging to either social class could immerse themselves in the tale. The nobility often wanted to hear stories of brave knights on virtuous quests for honor and glory, in hopes that it would spur a similar adventure in their own lives. Conversely, the peasants and laborers of the time preferred to be entertained with humor and light-hearted characters, in part to distract themselves from their own taxing lives, and also because the adventures of knighthood were far from their reach. While the storyteller’s need to bridge…

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare is also referred to as “That time of year thou mayst in me behold”. This poem is most likely written for a lover or a young friend, though the interpretation varies with the reader. Throughout sonnet 73, Shakespeare leads the reader through the loss of his youth and passion, ending with the loss of his life. It explores the toll that time takes on the body, one’s youth, and love. His goal is to show the one the poem is addressed to that time runs out and everyone dies eventually and that it is important to show affection for loved ones while they are alive.…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The poem divides into three stanzas, each six lines, with an ababcc rhyme scheme. Though a few of the lines in each stanza are enjambed, the sixth line of each stanza concludes with a period, giving each stanza the sense of being an individual unit. Each…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To look into a cursed mirror, is to be strangled by your own hair. Wait a minute that's not right but that's that's that's far from the same thing. With the two poems I am speaking of, Porphyria's Lover written by Robert Browning and Lady of Shalott written by Lord Tennyson, are the same in his many ways as they are different. This is like comparing two great works of art the Mona Lisa and the Starry Night both have beauty in their own ways.…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The poem appears like an ocean shore; the lines of the poem, emulating the back and forth motion of waves, are long, then shorten, lengthen, then shorten again, this in keeping with the mythical kingdom theme. The predominant rhythm that the poem uses is the anapest, a type of meter consisting of three syllables, with one stressed syllable occurring after two unstressed syllables (Poe's Annabel Lee). For example in the first line, the first syllable of “many” and the word “year” receive stress after two unaccented syllables, as shown here: Itwasma / nyandma / nyayear / a / go (Shmoop Editorial Team). The anapest rhythm adds excitement and a climactic aspect as it builds in momentum just as the overall structure of the poem does; they meet, they fall in love, she dies, he grieves, he accepts.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lady Of Shalott Gender

    • 1397 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Throughout the Victorian Age, an expectation was placed on women to fulfill their domesticity role. Though a Victorian woman was to remain in the home, she could express herself through singing, weaving, and other artistic outlets. As Greenblatt expresses, “Victorian society was preoccupied not only with legal and economic limitations on women’s lives, but with the very nature of woman” (1957). Furthermore, society expected women to remain obedient, while appearing inferior to their husbands, just as Linda Gill expresses by saying, “A woman’s power was very limited, and her subjectivity was only granted if it were appropriatable by and contained within traditional and patriarchally determined narrative structures” (111). In Robert Browning’s…

    • 1397 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to poet Rita Dove, “Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” This quote helps us understand why poems come in so many different styles, forms, and subjects. If one thinks of poetry as a whole, perhaps the first poem that surfaces the mind would be a poem in lyrical verse. This more general form of poetry is indeed how the vast majority of poems are written. However, the more classic form of poetry, or perhaps the more ancient form of poetry, is found in epic form, which is known as narrative verse.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poetry is a writing form that allows deep meaning to be summarized in just a few lines. Popular poetry topics can range from anything between love and hate, and joy and despair. Much of the time, poems are created through use of writing devices that are not always understood without deeper inspection. In Do Not Go Gentle, Dylan Thomas uses a repetitive villanelle form, nature imagery, and patterns of sound to create a message of defiance towards death of old age.…

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays