Any ideas about what the mirror might represent in Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott"?

Just a reflection on life:

[www.sparknotes.com] />

Les

Sounds like Perseus's problem in killing the Gorgon. If one cannot look at the scene directly, look at its reflection.


She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Also look at these links:

[www.victorianweb.org] /> [www.victorianweb.org] />
They explain how the poem deals with the Victorain ideal concerning women: at home, passive, not interfering with the active life outside, which is the sole playground of men. Women do not belong there.

concerning the mirror, one of the things it symbolises is women. So, as long as the lady of Shalott fulfills her proper role, the mirror is fine. She can look to the outside world by means of the mirror, but she has to be protected from it and cannot look directly outside. When she gives up her proper role and actively pursues love, instead of passively waiting for her destiny to come over her threshold, the mirror, i.e. she, breaks. She, as a woman, is too fragile for the real world. She is doomed to die.

Now, do you think Tennyson approved of this role for women? Or is he critisicing the way society keeps them fragile and dumb, and locked up? Are women naturally unable to cope with the world or are they taught to be so?

Good stuff, Desi! And a great site as well. I had forgotten all about their organisation, so it was good to visit them again. Here is some more from the same pages:

[www.victorianweb.org] />
Odd that empowered rhymes with embowered, no?

I see your ISP is now proxad.net, which seems to be in France. Did you leave Crete? Sorry I did not notice sooner.

empowered embowered? I would make it rhyme.

Yes, I am now if France. I got fed up with the sun and am now enjoying layers of snow in the Jura. (can you hear the sarcasm here?) But I spent January and February in the Netherlands, so I can imagine you can't keep up. Me neither ;-)

Jura, huh? Cool! I haven't been there, although I did spend a few days in Basel, CH a while back, which I seem to remember is nearby. Yet another language (French) for you to master as well.

Staying on topic, I can't help remembering The Madwoman of Chaillot when I think of Tennyson's poem. A great movie, with Yul Brenner, Donald Pleasance, and Katherine Hepburn as Countess Aurelia of course. The bad guys were convinced oil was to be found under the streets of Paris, and were plotting ways to obtain it nefariously. Yeah, I know, the critics panned it, but I found it enjoyable.

Adapted from Tennyson? Dunno.

don't know. Chaillot is a very famous French theatre, so the similar sounding names might just be a coincidence.

[www.theatre-chaillot.fr] />
Et oui, je parle francais tout le temps parce que les francais n'aiment pas trop l'anglais. Les barbares! ;-)

Ok, they are right. I wouldn't want to speak a germanic language either if I were them.

Yes, we are very close to Switzerland here. Very beautiful. You were on holidays here? Long trip.

I bought a Eurail pass and spent a few weeks flitting about the Continent on holiday, yes. Great way to travel, European trains. Beats the heck out of airplanes and/or driving oneself. But, just about the time one language was coming back to me, I was moving on to the next country, noticing a great tendency to mix English, French and German words into indecipherable sentences. I got a lot of blank stares, as you might imagine.

Looking up The Lady of Shalott in Brewer's seems to indicate that the theme was one Tennyson used frquently:

[tinyurl.com] />
Especially regarding the lady named Elaine,

[www.bartleby.com] />
"A poem by Tennyson, the tale of which is similar to that of Elaine the “fair maid of Astolat” (q.v.). Part I. describes the island of Shalott, and tells us that the lady passed her life so secluded there that only the farm-labourers knew her. Part II. tells us that the lady passed her time in weaving a magic web, and that a curse would light on her if she looked down the river towards Camelot. Part III. describes how Sir Lancelot, in all his bravery, rode to Camelot, and the lady looked at him as he rode along. Part IV. says that the lady entered a boat, having first written her name on the prow, and floated down the river to Camelot, but died on the way. When the boat reached Camelot, Sir Lancelot, with all the inmates of the palace, came to look at it. They read the name on the prow, and Sir Lancelot exclaimed, “She has a lovely face, and may God have mercy on the lady of Shalott!”


I'm not sure what that does to the theory of the empowered/embowered woman, but interesting nevertheless.

The Eiffel tower does look like an oil rig.

pam