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Category : Poems
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This poem was composed in its first form as early as May, 1832 or 1833, as we learn from Fitzgerald's note--of the
exact year he was not certain ('Life of Tennyson', i., 147). The evolution of the poem is an interesting study. How
greatly it was altered in the second edition of 1842 will be evident from the collation which follows. The text of 1842
became the permanent text, and in this no subsequent material alterations were made. The poem is more purely fanciful
than Tennyson perhaps was willing to own; certainly his explanation of the allegory, as he gave it to Canon Ainger, is
not very intelligible: "The new-born love for something, for some one in the wide world from which she has been so
long excluded, takes her out of the region of shadows into that of realities". Poe's commentary is most to the point:
"Why do some persons fatigue themselves in endeavours to unravel such phantasy pieces as the 'Lady of Shallot'? As
well unweave the ventum textilem".--'Democratic Review', Dec., 1844, quoted by Mr. Herne Shepherd. Mr. Palgrave
says (selection from the 'Lyric Poems of Tennyson', p. 257) the poem was suggested by an Italian romance upon the
Donna di Scalotta. On what authority this is said I do not know, nor can I identify the novel. In Novella, lxxxi., a
collection of novels printed at Milan in 1804, there is one which tells but very briefly the story of Elaine's love and
death, "Qui conta come la Damigella di scalot mori per amore di Lancealotto di Lac," and as in this novel Camelot is
placed near the sea, this may be the novel referred to. In any case the poem is a fanciful and possibly an allegorical
variant of the story of Elaine, Shalott being a form, through the French, of Astolat.
PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
(Footnote 1: 1833.
(Footnote 2: 1833.
shiver,
The sunbeam-showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island, etc.)
(Footnote 3: 1833.
(Footnote 4: 1833.
(Footnote 5: 1833.
(Footnote 6: 1833.
Therefore
...
Therefore
...
The Lady of Shalott.)
(Footnote 7: 1833.
(Footnote 9: In these lines are to be found, says the present Lord Tennyson, the key to the mystic symbolism of the
poem. But it is not easy to see how death could be an advantageous exchange for fancy-haunted solitude. The allegory
is clearer in lines 114-115, for love will so break up mere phantasy.)
(Footnote 20: "A corse" (1853) is a variant for the "Dead-pale" of 1857.)
(The end)
Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem: Lady Of Shalott