The Curse of the Lady of Shalott
A woman cursed to live in isolation weaves a magical tapestry, seeing the world only through reflections. When she glimpses Sir Lancelot, she leaves her tower, bringing about her doom.
Archetype: The Sacrifice of the Seer * Explores the tension between isolation and human connection, as well as the cost of pursuing beauty and love.
Symbolism: * The Mirror: The limited, mediated way we perceive reality. * Her Death: The cost of defying fate.
Alfred Lord Tennyson: ‘The Lady of Shalott’ his wonderful narrative poem in rhyming verses of 1832 (revised in 1842); and ‘Lancelot and Elaine’ from ‘Idylls of the King’ written between 1842 and 1848 - a re-telling in blank verse of Malory’s ‘Le Mort d’Arthur.’
‘Elaine the Fair, Elaine the Lovable,
Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where morning’s earliest ray
Might strike it and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashion’d for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon
All the devices blazon’d on the shield
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.’
