The Lady of Shalott (Historical Context)

Historical Context

Arthurian Legend

The character Tennyson calls the Lady of Shalott is based on Elaine of Astolat, one of the figures from the legend of King Arthur. Traditionally, she was identified only as “demoiselle d’escalot,” the fair maid of Astolat. It was Sir Thomas Malory who gave her the name “Elaine” in his 1485 book Le Morte d’Arthur. Tennyson wrote about her as Elaine, the Lilly Maid of Astolat, in The Idylls of the King published in 1885, but in his poem, “The Lady of Shalott” he has taken liberties, leaving her without a name and changing “Astolat” to the archaic “Shalott.” In both versions, the character dies of unrequited love for Sir Lancelot and floats down the river in a barge, to be wondered about by the common people who are going about their daily concerns.

The legends of King Arthur and his knights are mythical, although many researchers have put forth theories about the actual historical existence of the people they describe. The legends began appearing during the Middle Ages, between the fifth and fifteenth centuries. The earliest record of a King Arthur is in a seventh-century Welsh text. Arthurian stories were told all over Europe, particularly in France. The first continuous narrative of the legend, with most of the knights and supporting characters and specific episodes that readers know in the twenty-first century, appeared in the Historia Regum Britainne(“History of the Kings of Britain”) by the English writer Geoffrey of Monmouth, published in or around 1139. It was this book that identified the Arthur of Camelot as the sixth-century king, son of Uther Pendragon, who kept council with his court of knights at a round table and was married to Guinevere. Other historians have guessed that there were other kings named Arthur who could have inspired the legends.

Lancelot, the bold knight who is mentioned in this poem, is not mentioned in the earlier legends. He first appears in the late twelfth century, in Le Chevalier de Charette by Chrétien de Troyes and Lanzelot by Ulrich von Zatzikhofen. This character quickly became an integral part of the myth, a favorite character because he embodies the qualities of courage and chivalry that befit the tales.

According to legend, Lancelot is born “Galahad” but has his name changed early in life when his family is killed by a fire (he later has a son named Galahad with Elaine of Corbenic, who is different than Elaine of Astolat). He is raised by “The Lady of the Lake,” a mystical character who is said to have given Arthur the sword, Excalibur, which establishes him as king. It is her influence that establishes Lancelot on his eighteenth birthday as a knight of the Round Table. There, he proves to be the most valiant knight, but he also becomes treacherous: he and Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, fall in love and have an affair.

It is their sexual relationship that destroys the court at Camelot. When Arthur finds out about it, he orders Guinevere to be executed for treason. Lancelot and his army attack, spiriting the queen away and killing many knights. Guinevere is returned to Arthur, and Lancelot goes to France, where he establishes a rival court. In later years, the animosity between the two men cools, and Lancelot returns to Camelot before Arthur’s death to ask his forgiveness. He then retires to live a secluded, monkish life at his castle.

Romanticism

In terms of literary movements, Tennyson is most closely associated with the Victorian era. Queen Victoria liked his work and appointed him Poet Laureate of Britain, a post he held from 1850 to 1892. The first version of this poem appeared in 1833, though, when Tennyson was in his twenties. Its sensibilities reveal a closer attachment to the Romantic movement, which was at its peak at that time.

No category can capture the sensibilities of all of the artists who worked in a particular time, but it is sometimes helpful to name philosophical movements and to group thinkers with similar ideas in order to get a sense of the prevailing mood of an era. Romanticism was the prevailing mood at the end of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth. It is a reaction against the previous mood, which is called the Enlightenment, so named because it emphasized rationality, which led to the drive for political equality as the most rational way for states to govern. Two thinkers associated with the Enlightenment are Thomas Jefferson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, both of whom were instrumental in encouraging the cause of democracy over the rule of monarchs, and their writings contributed to the motivations behind the American and French Revolutions. The Enlightenment produced intellectual philosophers, and the art of the period was called Neo-Classical because it incorporated the logic, order, and balance of classical Greek art. (Neo-Classicism co-occurs with explorations of Greek and Roman ruins in Greece and Italy.)

Many historians recognize the start of the Romantic Period as occurring about 1800, when William Wordsworth set forth a new theory of poetry in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads. The Preface summarizes some important traits of Romanticism: an emphasis on feeling as the source of creativity, a preference for subjectivity, an overall devotion to nature as a symbolic code for spiritual truth, and a desire to give voice to oppressed and rustic people. Poetry, Wordsworth said, “is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility.” Poetry, then, is the expression of human feeling as it is remembered and continues to be felt. In the shadow of the French Revolution, English writers like William Blake and Samuel Coleridge expressed similar sensibilities.

The second phase of Romanticism, from 1805 to the 1830s, produced other writers associated with the term, the most famous of whom are John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron (born George Gordon). In addition to stressing feeling, writers continued an earlier interest in national history and folklore. Sir Walter Scott wrote historical novels about legendary English characters; John Keats (as well as many others) rewrote the Robin Hood legends; and Tennyson focused on the tales of the Knights of the Round Table. Another relevant element is an interest in the occult and in morbidity; Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein is an example as are the nightmarish visions in the poetry of the U.S. writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Compare & Contrast

• 1842: An important source of entertainment is books and magazines. More middle-class people are familiar with the mythic stories as they have been preserved in literature for generations.

  Today: There is still some familiarity with King Arthur’s Court, but most people know it as it is depicted in movies or in theme park recreations.

• 1842: The English countryside is more open and unpolluted. Cities, particularly London, are crowded and polluted, but people who have been to the country can easily imagine the landscape that Tennyson describes.

  Today: For the most part, the English countryside is divided into walled-off fields and farm tracks. Since coal burning is illegal in cities, urban air pollution is reduced.

• 1842: Alfred Tennyson was a young, struggling poet who had to quit writing for a time because he could not pay his bills.

  Today: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is considered an important writer and his works are studied in English literature courses.

• 1842: Scientists do not understand microbiological causes for death, which makes it more mysterious; thus, poets explore rich metaphorical possibilities for explaining what causes sudden death.

  Today: Microbiology explains many symptoms to be caused by viruses and fungi, and science measures correlations between physical health and longevity and psychological and emotional well-being.