Getting it wrong in "The Lady of Shalott"

Victorian Poetry, Spring, 2009 by Erik Gray

I have said that the paradox of conscious error at the heart of "The Lady of Shalott" is powerful because it is familiar to us from art; but it is worth noting that the paradox pertains just as strongly to the poem's other great subject, love. One can know precisely what one needs and wants in a lover, and yet such knowledge does not prevent one from pursuing someone who has none of these qualities. To say that the Lady makes an error in fixating upon Lancelot is not to disparage Lancelot himself, about whom we know little. Nor is it to suggest that the Lady ought to have stayed forever at her loom: as I note below, she seems to be equally cursed if she stays her weaving or if she stays at it. But if the Lady's hope in breaking away from her loom is to escape the companionship of mere images ("I am half sick of shadows," l. 71), then we can say with assurance that Lancelot is precisely the wrong choice of love-object. As Tucker points out, "Lancelot is no presence, but pure representation: a man of mirrors, a signifier as hollow as the song he sings" (Tucker, p. 112).

The Lady shares her predicament with other Tennyson heroines of the 1830s, who usually have more ample time for consideration than she does and yet act in the same fashion. Mariana for instance recognizes explicitly, not only that her lover cometh not, but that "He will not come" ("Mariana," 1. 82); nonetheless, she continues to wait for him. Similarly, Oenone is able to offer perfectly sage advice when she tells Paris which goddess he should choose as the fairest: "Paris pondered, and I cried, 'O Paris, / Give [the apple] to Pallas!'" ("Oenone," ll. 165-166). Yet she herself chooses as unworthily as he, reserving her affection for the very man whose betrayal of her she has just witnessed. At the conclusion of the poem Oenone goes to seek out Cassandra, and her choice of companion is apt; just as foresight is of no benefit to the latter, so her own better knowledge cannot help the former. To draw another Miltonic parallel: Paris' choice resembles the fall of Eve, a giving-in to instant temptation, ambition, and desire (although Paris hands the fruit over, rather than receiving it). (18) Oenone's poor decision, by contrast, resembles the fall of Adam--a conscious, deliberate, undeceived pursuit of what one knows to be inferior.

This predicament is less familiar as an aspect of poetry than of love but perhaps even more essential. It is represented most explicitly, as I have mentioned, in Tennyson's "The Lotos-Eaters." If the poem had depicted Ulysses' mariners as simply succumbing to temptation--to a life of pleasure on an island more perfect than their own--it would have lacked the tension that makes it so powerful. As it stands, however, the mariners must work hard to convince themselves and each other to remain in the land of the lotos; to give themselves up to idleness requires an act of will. This is clear from the moment in the poem when the idea of permanently abjuring responsibility is first put forth.