Weaving about witches and the Lady of Shallot

Anna sent through my poem form poetry last week. I think my flatmate Alison would really love to see it, she helped me find this poem The Lady of Shallot and the pictures on the internet. This poem is a very intellectual poem. That means its to do with the history of poetry, romance and ideas. Its one chapter of the Tennyson poems that use the characters from King Arthur, like Elaine, in these pictures who loved Sir Lancelot, but could never catch him, like I said in my poem. She was carried into the castle with the king and queen looking like she was dead. In the boat she has her weaving which she did in the tower. Like the words woven in a poem. She looks a bit like a wood nymph. Maybe she has a little bit of the power of a witch. Weavers used to be called witches because they used a stick to spin the thread and told stories and song with secret knowledge in them. They celebrated female creativity in their lives.

Thinking About Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott

By Emma Brodie

With Anna Maria Dell'oso

Emma: I found out about this poem on the Internet when I was looking for things about water. I want to talk about this fellow, Alfred Lord Tennyson, who is the writer of the poem.

There are a lot of paintings made about the Lady of Shalott. Anna read about this lady who lived in the Arthurian times that the poem is about. She was called Lady Elaine and she fell in love with Sir Lancelot. However Lady Elaine did not know that Sir Lancelot was taken. He was not available, that he was secretly in love with the Queen Guinivere, who was the wife of King Arthur of the Knights of the Round Table. Nobody knew about that because it was an affair. So Lady Elaine was ignored by Sir Lancelot and she died of a broken heart. Which is of like me in there.

Anna: In what way is she like you, Emma?

Emma: I just like her red dress. And how she's a little bit of like Shakespeare.

Anna: You mean she's like Ophelia? Because Ophelia died of a broken heart as well, and she floated down a river with flowers in her hair. Ophelia was in love with Hamlet but he also did not treat her well. For different reasons though, like that he didn't trust her. Which wasn't fair. So she went "mad" -

Emma: Mad is not broken-hearted. It was cruellness.

Anna: By Hamlet?

Emma: Yes, and everybody. I don't like cruellness. Sometimes I do like the sadness in female Shakespeare, just like of her (Ophelia's) tears. Because people don't pay attention of people's tears. Especially boys. And Shakespeare's men. There was a lot forbidden. Sometimes these Shakespeare women, they got their fathers - fathers that I don't like. Like Juliet's father. And these lovely Shakespeare ladies here ...

Anna: These ladies are actually not Shakespearian. These are called Pre-Raphaellite ladies.

Emma: So what are they?

Anna: These ladies were painted by a group of male painters that were called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Not sure why. I will look that up. But they loved a lot of medieval -

Emma: Evil?

Anna: No, no, no evil! I mean the times around the Middle Ages which people call medieval. There were knight and fights on horseback called jousts. The Pre-Raphaelites painted them romantically, with lots of deep colours and velvety, rich materials. The ladies had long curling hair and strong even-featured faces that didn't look modern. The Pre-Raphaelites had their favourites models, especially one called Elizabeth Siddal.

Emma: I want to know about her.

Anna: Yes, she's really interesting. But let's go back to Elaine, who was the original Lady of Shalott. Her real name apparently was Lady Elaine of Astolat.

Emma: Yes, she's very interesting. In the river, she was on the boat, which she writes her name on. There are pretty flowers on it, Shakespeare roses and a wonderful description of the heart of the lady. Because she wanted to leave her room. It's sad she had to be in a tower - and I know it's not a fairytale, it's real, isn't it?

Anna: Not sure. I don't think it's all that strictly real because what happens is that the island of Shalott is supposed to be a description of the lady being isolated from all the life and activities of Camelot, so she's a woman who is over-cared for and trapped.

Emma: She's an outsider is she? What does an outsider do? It's not a part of nature is it?

Anna: She's certainly an outsider. That's a really good description of her, Emma. No, it's not part of nature, it's about being kept away from nature. In that society, in those days - and even beyond those days - women who were in the families of very wealthy people, they were kept like precious dolls or toys, locked away from everyone else.

Emma: Grown womens too?

Anna: Yes, it was because they were supposed to do gentle and delicate things, like spinning, weaving, embroidery. But they weren't allowed to do these crafts AND be themselves. They needed to be trained to stay away from normal life. Like in the poem, the normal life is of the village and of Camelot. So with the Lady of Shalott's beautiful weaving of her life, the poem is saying that she's an artist. But she can only weave the scenes from her mirror, she can't be in life, just interpreting it. I think the poem is about when Elaine or the Lady of Shalott, discovers herself, including her sexuality.

Emma: For the Knight?

Anna: Yes. The horse and the knight represent the masculine sexual energy in a good way because she is a normal woman growing up and she needs to be in the middle of life, living with risks of connecting to people.

Emma: And weakness?

Anna: Yes, and weakness, and making her own mistakes and decisions, growing into a woman, having children, growing old. The Lady of Shalott says "I am half-sick of shadows." That means that she doesn't want to live a shadow life where she only sees life in her mirror and she's always observing and being observed but she's never the subject of her own life.

Emma: So she's a desperate woman, and a private woman, is she?

Anna: Yes, it means she wants to make the decision to escape her island. Which she does.

Emma: So we can stop there because I think she's not Sleeping Beauty yet, she's not Princess Aurora. She's not Snow White either.

Anna: No. What happens is, she arrives at Camelot looking dead. Some people think her death is more like a deep sleep. The sleep part is like the princesses who sleep for a hundred years. That's about the feminine soul that arrives at Camelot without any way of taking care of itself.

Emma: No charms?

Anna: No, not yet. Because the Tennyson poem was written in the Victorian era. Which means the poem hasn't caught up with what happens next. Which is the growth of the soul of women in their beauty.

Emma: The world now knows it. But fairy stories have to catch up.

Anna: Yes, and you remember what Lyz said about fairies sometimes being a little bit evil? There is a whole mythology that is about secret women's business, and this was the time when they called wise women witches. So it's an interesting time for fables. There are many layers.

Emma. Yes. I think I've finished. For now.

Anna: To be continued?

Emma: Yes.

Anna: Well done Emma. That's a hard poem. And you've understood it very well.