«Легенда о леди Шелотт» Маньшина Дарья , 2007
In dark times, when cruel invaders and evil forces attacked Britain
One of the greatest heroes of all times was King Arthur with his knights of justice. A lot of legends are connected with his personality, for example the legends of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Mariana in the South, Tristam and Isotte and many others. As for me, I like the other one, the legend about lady Shalott and her hopeless love to bold sir Lancelot.
Great artists and poets of Victorian epoch were of great interest of this legend and created a lot of pieces of art, poems and other works devoted to it. It was the brotherhood of Pre-Raphaelites, who created the whole cult of legends about King Arthur and especially lady Shalott.
John William Waterhouse is not one of the most famous artists and never was, but his works on mythological and legendary topics are full of real feelings, real colors and real people. It was Waterhouse who created the most famous canvases about lady Shalott. There are three of them, and each shows separate episode from the legend.
And now I’ll tell you the legend itself.
In a castle there lives a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, lady Shalott, who is cursed to weave on a tapestry everything she sees in the mirror and never to look outside the window. That is why she lives, resigned to the prophecy. But once she sees in the mirror the bold and handsome knight, sir Lancelot, falls in love with him and runs to the window to look at him. Then the curse falls on her, and she, drawn by the magic power of love and curse, goes to the river and floats down to Camelot. During this short journey she sings her last song and dies.
Alfred Tennyson was the most beloved poet of Victorian epoch. More than two hundred poems, ballads and plays issued from his pen. On the base of Sir Thomas's Mallory “Le Morte d’Artur” he created the cycle of poems devoted to the legend of King Arthur, which includes thirteen poems, like Merlin and Vivian, Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere and some others.
In the sixties he wrote the cycle Lady Shalott and other poems, including the very ballade The Lady of Shalott, which inspired most of well-known artists for creation of pieces of art which are now world famous.
Now I would like to present the first stanza of the poem Lady Shalott and its translation made by myself.
The poem sensually is divided into four parts by Tennyson: the first one tells us about the external world: river, fields, reapers and people in Camelot. The second part is devoted to lady's everyday life: tapestry, web and mirror; the third one – about the appearing of Lancelot and ladies falling in love. In the last part it is told about the curse, Shalott’s way to Camelot and her death.
Tennyson has described the nature in the poem as the mirror of the life and soul of lady Shalott.
In the first part the nature is as calm as ladies life: the lady weaves permanently and
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro’ the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
The second part devoted to the curse description should be mystical. That is why Tennyson says about the funeral, moonlight and the misty figures in ladies mirror.
In the third part of the poem Tennyson describes the appearance of Lancelot, which was alike with the sun bursting into in ladies life. That is why the poet in the description of the knight often uses verbs connected with the sun, like dazzle, sparkle, glitter, shine, flame, glow and so on. There are more then ten of them.
After the curse fell on the lady and after she understood it, the landscape changed immediately:
“In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot…”
As only I have read the poem, I wondered, why did lady die? And why did she, after she understood the curse was on her, go to the boat and float down to Camelot? To answer this question we have to read another Tennyson’s poem, Lancelot and Elaine, which is in fact the other variation of story about lady Shalott, where in the end there is a ladies suicide note where she makes a declaration of love to Lancelot and says it is the only reason of her death.
As a result of my research I have understood that the legends' creation is a long process which takes hundreds of years, scores of generations. What is more some legends of different cultures repeat each other and after reunion a new beautiful legend is created. For example Tennyson took two stories: by Mallory and Italian one and created the full legend of lady Shalott.
If you read the poem Lady Shalott carefully, you notice that it is not just a love story, but the essence of a creative work: the artist abstracts his mind from outside world and, while creating, views it through the magic mirror of his soul.
In such a way, most of legends do not just tell us the story, but have the sense that is much deeper and help us with their wisdom of generations to understand the world better and to live easier.
The legend of lady Shalott
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