Lady of Shallot

Tennyson’s 1832 poem, “The Lady of Shalott”, found itself born again in its revised state after Tennyson’s ten year silent period. In both versions, the Lady of Shalott is a body of creativity. Her weaving is an artform. Enveloped in the tapestry are images and pictures of the reflections she sees passing in her magic mirror. The Lady of Shalott is an artist of both the loom and of images. Tennyson uses this status …

…concrete statement on the detachment of the artist from society. The final words of the poem amplify this message by leaving the Lady of Shalott’s identity a mystery. In the 1842 version, she is mute, and the final words attributed to her are ones that do not even begin to uncover the severity of her identity. She is merely a “lovely face” (1842, l. 169). The artist reaches its ultimate abstraction by being refused a concrete identity.