The Lady of Shalott – John William Waterhouse
The Lady of Shalott – John William Waterhouse
” The Lady of Shalott ” is a ballad by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892). Like his other early poems – “Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere”, and “Galahad” – the poem recasts Arthurian subject matter loosely based on medieval sources. Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one published in 1833, of 20 stanzas, the other in 1842, of 19 stanzas.
The poem is loosely based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat, as recounted in a thirteenth-century Italian novella titled Donna di Scalotta (No. LXXXII in the collection Cento Novelle Antiche); the earlier version is closer to the source material than the latter. Tennyson focused on the Lady’s “isolation in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two subjects not even mentioned in Donna di Scalotta.”
The poem was particularly popular amongst artists of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who shared Tennyson’s interest in Arthuriana; several of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood made paintings based on episodes from the poem. Two aspects, in particular, of “The Lady of Shalott” intrigued these artists: the idea of the lady trapped in her tower and the dying girl floating down the river towards Camelot.
John William Waterhouse painted three episodes from the poem. In 1888, he painted the Lady setting out for Camelot in her boat; this work is now in the Tate Gallery. In 1894, Waterhouse painted the Lady at the climactic moment when she turns to look at Lancelot in the window; this work is now in the City Art Gallery in Leeds. Poulson argues that Waterhouse’s impressionistic painting style in his 1894 rendering of The Lady of Shalott evokes a “sense of vitality and urgency”. In 1915, Waterhouse painted “I Am Half-Sick of Shadows,” Said the Lady of Shalott, as she sits wistfully before her loom
“And down the rivers dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance —
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.”
