On my first reading of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott," I had a surprisingly hard time understanding what I was reading (as is typical with my first poem readings). I understood that there was a lady on an island who saw Lancelot and got on a boat she wrote "The Lady of Shalott" on to float down the river to Camelot in, but that's about all I got from it. Once we were speaking in class, and upon looking at the classic painting of the lady, I finally understood what was happening, and, more importantly, I began seeing the deeper meaning in the poem.
I've always had problems finding the overall message in poems and stories. Often I would write what I had found, and often I would be set straight by the teacher. Often I read a story and can't dive beneath "What a lovely story." Sometimes I read a story and find nothing the teacher would refer to as a "deeper meaning." In the Lady of Shalott's case, I simply didn't understand what was on the page. However, in class we learned a bit of Lord Tennyson's biography and light began to shine: he wrote previously on the idea of how science is changing our place in the world. I started putting this with the little I knew of the poem, and it made sense. Then I saw the paintings, and I realized the "web" in the poem was in fact an actual loom (and I thought it was symbolic! That's how awful I am in first readings.).
Upon further discussion of the poem I have discovered two possible meanings within this poem:
1. He is speaking on the loss of humanity upon discovering the truth that science offers, and
2. He is speaking on the purpose of poetry, and why writing is so important.
The first of these is rather evident within the actual storyline of the poem. The Lady, who is magically and mystically bound (and therefore represents the mysticism so prominent among us in the past), grows tired of seeing the world only through her mirror (or the ideas of religion?). So, once she sees something to appeal to her outside of her loom, she goes away from it and looks at the real world (or starts venturing into scientific explanations). Upon this, the mirror cracks, and a "curse" is come upon her. So she gets in a boat and sings through to her death (singing, a non-scientific, soulful thing). In dying she's shown how beauty and a bit of our humanity dies on the pursuit of scientific knowledge. This is emphasized in Lancelot's final, religious, words.
The second of these is mostly evident in the ending of the poem. The Lady of Shalott appears dead to a celebrating crowd, and, once they see her, are put to fits of fear and crying. This represents how receiving poetry should remind us again of the world around us, of the certainty of things to fear and death, and that poetry should have a large affect on its listeners. What's most evident of this, though, is the fact that the Lady wrote the title of the poem on the edge of what delivered her to her audience, therefore her idea is delivered to us as the lady is delivered to the Camelot people.
The meaning of this was fun and fascinating to discover. Perhaps I can read into the next poem as this reading in has been done.
You make some really interesting observations about first verses deeper readings of poems. Poets like Tennyson--who tend to write about historical or mythological events--can be particularly challenging because one suspects that there's more going on than just a straightforward story, but it's hard to know what the deeper meaning might be without knowing about the poet and/or the historical period he was writing in. The Robert Browning poem we're reading for Monday (I believe) also looks to the past, so it might be useful to think about why he's writing about a past event when you read the poem. It can be hard to know in poems like these--unless the author has specifically spoken about the poem--but I like the possibilities for interpretation that arise.
ReplyDeleteInteresting blog! I really like your ideas about the connections between the poem and poetry in general. Also, what you said about not finding deeper meanings in poetry was really funny and something I can relate to! (If you're not feeling much like uncovering deeper meanings, get into some Modernism and Post-modernism! Your head will still hurt, but for different reasons) :)
ReplyDeleteI am glad I am not the only one that ever feels lost and trying as much as I can to see the deeper meanings. For some reason I cannot see the loom or the mirror or the lady in my head. So when we looked at the paintings in class it finally clicked for me also. It usually does not matter how many times I scan over the poems I still struggle to grasp the ideas. It is usually after the discussion that is the "ah ha" moments for me.
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