The Lady Of Shalott, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Unlike my previous two posts, The Lady Of Shalott is a longer narrative poem. I've read this one previously, so unlike I Felt A Funeral..., , I'm not going in blind. This is a beautiful poem, and again, one of my favourites. However, since it is pretty long, instead of posting the entire thing, I will quote the stanzas that refer directly to what I am discussing, and add a link to the entire poem at the bottom of the page

The rhyme scheme runs something like this:
A
A
A
A
Camelot
B
B
B
The Lady of Shalott.

This form doesn't really have a name. Most of the lines are in iambic tetrameter. The poem is very song-like, which, considering the subject matter, is very appropriate.

This poem tells the tragic tale of the titular lady. The first section of the poem sets up her existence. To the people of Camelot, the Lady is a fairytale, no more real to them than they are to us. She lives on an island, not really that far from Camelot, yet no one has seen her. You'll notice that the Lady has no name. Throughout the poem, she is only referred to as the Lady of Shalott. She is forgotten to the people of Camelot, and by extension to us. The very people she wants to connect with have no connection to her. I find this only adds to her tragedy.

The second section goes more into  the Lady's day-to-day life. All she does is weave. The Lady is cursed, so that she can never look at Camelot, but she doesn't know what will happen if she does. It's this fear that keeps her in her tower. Besides weaving, she  can look into a mirror to see what happens down in Camelot. However, the Lady is bored and lonely. It's stated in the third verse of Part II that she  "hath no loyal knight and true", and that she spends her time watching the people down below her. It is here we have one of the more famous quotes from this poem:
"I am half sick of shadows," 
said The Lady of Shalott. 
The Lady wants to interact with the people she has only watched for years, and it is in part this desire for companionship that drives her to leave the tower in Part IV

In Part III, we meet one of the other things that drive the Lady to her fate: Sir Lancelot. Part III is largely descriptions of how handsome he is. As he is riding towards Camelot, the Lady notices him, and this drives her to leave her loom and look out on Camelot. This is one of my favourite verses.
She left the web, she left the loom,
 She made three paces through the room,
 She saw the water-lily bloom,
 She saw the helmet and the plume, 
She looked down to Camelot. 
Out flew the web and floated wide;
 The mirror cracked from side to side;
 "The curse is come upon me," cried
 The Lady of Shalott.
I think it's a beautiful representation of exactly what drives the Lady to fulfill her curse and die. It's tragic, but also joyful in a way. By giving in to her curse, she will be free at last.

Part IV is where the Lady will meet her end. She climbs into a boat and sails herself down to Camelot. This section is beautiful, both from the poetry and the imagery. The Lady dies singing, revelling in her freedom despite the fact that she knows that she is dying. The last image left by the poem is Lancelot hoping that the Lady will be happy in heaven.

I like this poem very much. The imagery is beautiful, and the story is romantic, tragic and sweet.  It discusses the value of freedom as much as it tells a love story. It has beautiful language, and it is a wonderful read.
Full Text: The Lady Of Shalott

Up Next: You're, Sylvia Plath

Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day, William Shakespeare- Analysis

Those of you who know me will know that I love Shakespeare. This is one of his more popular and better known sonnets. Like my last post, I've never analysed this particular poem, although I'm very familiar with the author's other works. So, without further Ado, let's dive right in!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

 And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 

And often is his gold complexion dimmed; 

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

 By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;

 But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

 Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, 

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. 

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee

Like its 153 fellows, this is a Shakespearian sonnet, which means that its rhyme scheme runs something like this: 
ABAB
CDCD
EFEF
GG
Like most of Shakespeare's poetry, Shall I Compare Thee... is in Iambic Pentameter (this means the meter contains five iambs per line, an iamb being two syllables the first unstressed, the second stressed). The flow of the poem is very much like speaking. Shakespeare used iambic pentameter for most of the dialogue in his plays, largely for noble characters. This says something about the class of the speaker. 

The subject matter of this poem is, in my opinion, lighter than my previous choice. It's a love poem, although the main subject matter is less Love and more the concept of Beauty. The speaker is comparing the looks of his lover to the beauty of summer. Through the first two quatrains , he discusses the flaws of a summer day. In the third one, there's a volta, a turn in the subject matter, where the speaker tells us about why his lover is better than summer, because her beauty will outlast the summer (a volta is a leftover from an earlier form, the Petrarchan sonnet, which were literally all love poems). Despite said lover being a human, and thus doomed to die eventually, the poem immortalizes her, keeping her features alive forever. 

This poem is a good example of courtly love. Courtly love is a concept of romance that revolves largely around worship from afar. In most examples of courtly love, the worshipper views the object of their affection as an idol, to be admired and adored, but not interacted with. Earlier, I pointed out that, in Shakespeare,  iambic pentameter is commonly used for noble characters. Following this, the speaker could be seen as a young gentleman, writing a poem about the object of his distant affection. 



Up Next: The Lady Of Shalott, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I felt a funeral in my brain, Emily Dickinson- Analysis

Let's start with one of the easier (in my opinion) poems in my list, Emily Dickinson's I felt a funeral in my brain. While I have analysed Dickinson before, I've actually never read this poem, so these are my first impressions. I am a huge fan of her works, though, so this will definitely be a fun one to look at.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading – till it seemed That Sense was breaking through –  And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum –  Kept beating – beating – till I thought My Mind was going numb –  And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space – began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race Wrecked, solitary, here –  And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down –  And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then –

Let's get through the poem's mechanics first, before we tackle themes and ideas.
The rhyme scheme runs in an A,B,C,B rhythm.

A     I felt a funeral in my brain, B     And mourners, to and fro, C     Kept treading, treading, till it seemed B     That sense was breaking through.

The lines mostly alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with a few exceptions. The poem is, like most of Dickinson's poetry, is in the same rhythm format as most hymns, which is why you can sing this poem to "Amazing Grace" and the theme from Gilligan's Island.

Now, let's look at the themes of the poem. Many of Dickinson's poems, including this one, are about death. This one seems to me to be more of a death of the mind than a physical one. The fact that it is called I felt a funeral in my brain certainly contributed to this theory. The speaker frequently talks about her mind, describing it as numb. It seems to me that this mental funeral is the death of the speaker's sanity. The first line of Stanza Four mentions a Plank of Reason breaking beneath the speaker, and dropping her, possibly into her own delusion. The poem ends with the speaker alone in her head, wrecked and solitary.

The last two lines of the third stanza are the part that I find relates to Dickinson's life. The lines are "And I and silence some strange race, Wrecked, solitary, here". Dickinson was notoriously reclusive. The lines, in my opinion, reflect on the speaker's loneliness. This is what could have, perhaps, driven her (the speaker)  mad.


Up Next: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day, William Shakespeare

Bienvenue a Ma Blog

Hey Y'all! Welcome to my poetry blog! This is an English project, where I will analyse 10 different poems. I've chosen these so far:

• You're, Sylvia Plath
• I felt a funeral in my brain, Emily Dickenson
• The Lady of Shallot, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• The Passionate Shepard to his Love, Christopher Marlowe, combined with The Nymph's Reply to the Shepard, Sir Walter Raliegh 
• Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer's Day, William Shakespeare
• A post devoted to the lyrics of several of the songs of Stephen Sondheim, the specifics of which are yet to be determined

The order I listed them in is most likely not the order I will post in. If you have any recommendations  or comments, please share the with me. However, please keep criticism constructive! This is a project, after all.

Thank you for reading!

-Sophie