Tennyson’s Mood Shift in the Intro Stanzas of The Lady of Shalott
by Grace Ferrara
Alfred Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott is a well-known ballad that describes an isolated woman in a tower who is imprisoned due to an unknown curse. The poem’s opening stanza begins with vivid images of Camelot and Shalott—Camelot is described as a beautiful landscape with “long fields of barley and rye, / that clothe the wold and meet the sky.” The road through Camelot is surrounded by natural beauty and is traveled on by a continuous flow of people. Shalott is described in much less detail than Camelot—“gazing where the lilies blow, / round an island there below, / the island of Shalott;” Shalott is portrayed as merely a place that is in a traveler’s passing on their journey to Camelot. Tennyson’s opening stanza is meant to set the tone for the rest of the poem. Readers are now familiar with two scenes—Camelot and Shalott. Camelot is meant to represent a life of opportunity and fulfillment; “many-tower’d Camelot” is appealing to the many that it attracts, symbolizing desirable features that they hope to maintain in the future. Shalott is meant to symbolize a bubble, a concealed and hidden part of the world that is ignored by the majority.
The second stanza utilizes a “darker” winter tone, with “willows whiten, aspens quiver, / [and] little breezes dusk and shiver.” This opening sets up the description of The Lady of Shalott; readers get a sense of the gloom of the “four gray walls, and four gray towers” that overlook the natural beauty of flowers below. The Lady of Shalott is stuck, imprisoned in silence surrounded by dullness—the only sense of beauty she experiences is from an outside perspective, through a mirror in her small space. It is almost worse to be stuck in isolation with an outside view of beautiful landscapes—landscapes that are restricted from experiencing. If Camelot was depicted as somber and dreary, The Lady of Shalott would not be as desperate in her seclusion. In this stanza, readers are able to interpret the mood that Tennyson creates for the duration of his poem. The winter “chilly” weather description is meant to represent the dark and gloomy events that will unfold later in the poem. These “darker” descriptions are also meant to comment on an individual’s reluctance to live their life to the fullest; the depiction of the four grey walls is representative of mental isolation and constraints that humans create for themselves.
Camelot and Shalott represent something deeper than what is expressed in the poem—they represent humanity and the struggle of expression. Shalott is hidden, suggesting that our internal restrictions often hold us back from reaching our full potential. The human yearning for a picturesque life full of achievement and opportunity is depicted as Camelot. The Lady of Shalott’s situation is similar to many individuals who wrestle with internal hesitation to step out of their individual comfort zones to experience a fulfilling life.
