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| William Holman Hunt's The Lady of Shalott (1905). |
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| John William Waterhouse's "I Am Half Sick of Shadows" Said the Lady of Shalott (1915, housed at the Art Gallery of Ontario). |
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| John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalott (1888, housed at the Tate Gallery in Great Britain). |
Pull out your Graphic Organizer on Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shallot" and answer the following questions:
- What associations do you have with the word "cracked?"
- "Mirror?"
- "Curse?"
- "Shadows?"
In the comments section below, please explain the meaning of one of the above words in the context of the poem. You may wish to consider why you think the Lady of Shalott becomes "half sick" of the shadows she sees in her mirror.
When you are finished, listen to selections of Loreena McKennit's "The Lady of Shalott" and follow along with the Lady of Shalott PowerPoint presentation.
In Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Lady of Shalott" the mirror is a sort of viewable portal to the outside world. Despite it's great power of showing her the world around her, it is more of a torture than a pleasure. The mirror's images tease the Lady of Shalott with things she cannot have, people she cannot meet, and places she cannot go.
ReplyDeleteits*
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy you caught your apostrophe rule! "Its" and "it's" can be so tricky. I was your age when I first learned that you didn't add a possessive apostrophe to the pronoun "it" because it would make the word a contraction.
DeleteAlso, nice points on the "viewable portal to the outside world." You use very accurate language! Tennyson would be pleased!
I decided to explain the significance in the word "mirror." A mirror is typically an object used every day to see a reflection, but in this case the mirror is a guide of hope, depression, and anticipation. The mirror shows "shadows" of newly wed couples and Sir Lancelot, and all Lady Shalott wants is a man for herself and to find love, and is "half sick" of just seeing the emotions through a mirror, and wants to experience it herself. This mirror also contributed to her curse, for if she were to leave the tower and her weaving routine through the mirror and into the real world, she would die. The mirror led to her wanting more than her regular life in her tower, and lured her to death.
ReplyDeleteExcellent analysis Gilleyanne! I'm impressed with how you describe the Lady of Shallot's thought process and the nuances of her curse.
DeleteThe word "mirror" is extremely important in Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "The Lady of Shallot." The mirror is how the outside world is shown to the Lady of Shallot, but rather than it being useful to her, it only ends up making her feel more trapped and alone.
ReplyDelete1. Cracked: dead, cursed, doomed
ReplyDelete2. Mirror: cursed, magic portal, reflection
3. Curse: trapped, dark magic, sad fate
4. Shadows: lonely, darkness, afraid
I think the Lady of Shallot is saying that she is sick of being lonely when she says she is "half sick" of the shadows she sees in her mirror. She desires more interaction with the outside world because she has been kept from it for her whole life but can watch it all through her magic mirror.
!. "Cracked" Broken, Unusable, a sign of things to come.
ReplyDelete2. "Mirror" window, portal, a way to see the world without actually seeing it.
3. "Curse" Shackles, ailment, a powerful magic that holds the lady in place.
4. "Shadows" Darkness, illusion, a fake show of what is real.
In the poem the lady of Shallot refers to shadows as representations of the real world that she sees through her mirror. She also grows to have a distaste for the shadows and her mirror due to the fact that she wants to see the world in person.
In "Lady of Shallot," the word shadows does not refer to an object interfering with light. I translated the meaning as the people she can see in the mirror, but doesn't know, and can't know. The lady knows they are there, but she has no further knowledge of them. She is "half sick" of the shadows because she wants them to be more than just shadows to her, she longs for them to be real people, to be able to communicate with them.
ReplyDeleteThe word "curse" is used as the idea that kept the Lady in the tower. The curse was given to the Lady of Shallot long before, and when she finally gets fed up with the curse, the tower, and the "shadows", she leaves, and the curse slowly kills her with a trance-like state, as she floats down the river.
ReplyDeleteThe Lady of Shallot is not allowed to look out the window but she does so by seeing though a single mirror. The Lady grows sick of looking out this mirror and if you look at the definition of mirror, it references the word "reflection." I don't think anyone would want to see a reflection of the world but the actual world in its entirety. And so I believe the Lady just wants to see the beautiful world herself and not though a mock image.
ReplyDeleteIn the poem, "The Lady of Shallot" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the curse represents all things that hold you back. The Lady of Shallot was now allowed to live a normal life, and could only see other lives through a magic mirror. This made her yearn to find a companion. She left the tower and the mirror cracked which signaled the start of the curse. Breaking the curse will affect your life, or even end it.
ReplyDeleteBreaking the curse resulted in the end of her life.**
DeleteIn "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the whole poem is about The Lady of Shalott, and how she is stuck in the tower, forever weaving because of the curse. The mirror in the tower shows everything that is going on in Camelot, which is where she wants to be so very bad. So she is almost in a state of limbo, as she weaves day and night watching what happens in the outside world and wishing she could be there. When she sees Sir Lancelot from her mirror, it completely changed everything, and her mirror cracked, breaking the confinement of the tower. When she finally escaped from the tower and began going down the river she slowly died. The curse was that she was to stay in the tower forever, weaving, and if she ever left she would die. Because she wanted to go to Camelot and unite with Sir Lancelot so badly, it made the curse so much more dreadful and she was in a sort of dreamy state. So basically her fantasy distracted her from the curse, and it seems she subconsciously had to chose between her tower limbo and certain death.
ReplyDeleteThe word "curse" is such an important word in this story because it forms the chain of events and it's themes. Like what would happen to her / where would she be/ how would she like without the "curse upon her.
ReplyDeleteI believe she is "half sick" of the shadows because she wants to interact with people. She wants to be like the people in the lively town instead of the quiet almost dead town that she is in and wants to get out of the tower she is stuck in to stay in