Date of Award
Spring 4-26-2016
Document Type
Honors Project
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English, Linguistics, and Communication
First Advisor
Rochelle, Warren
Second Advisor
Richards, Gary
Major or Concentration
English
Abstract
Alfred, Lord Tennyson began writing "The Lady of Shalott" in a time of tremendous social and political change for England. Ten years after it was written, in 1842, a new, heavily-revised version of the poem was published. The Lady's agency (or lack of it) within the two versions of the poem fluctuates; in parts of the 1842 poem, she gains more control over herself, only to lose some of the agency she possessed in the 1832 poem. This paper shows that even after his major editing, Tennyson's depiction of the Lady, while exhibiting some signs of power, perpetuates the lack of agency she possessed in the original poem; this idea is exhibited in the elements that Tennyson added to the original myth (the curse, the images of the mirror and the loom, the change in the Lady's family, and the Lady's use of song), as well as the figure of Lancelot.
Recommended Citation
Cox, Christina M., ""She Left the Web, She Left the Loom": The Extent of Agency in "The Lady of Shalott"" (2016). Student Research Submissions. 54.
https://scholar.umw.edu/student_research/54