Romanticism and "The Lady of Shalott"

Romanticism

Romantic Authors

The American Renaissance

Read the statements below. Which ones are not about Romanticism in general or in the US? Justify your choices.

Romanticism: Romantic Period in the USA: -1828-1865.

1. ( ) Belief in natural goodness of man, that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by civilization. The figure of the "Noble Savage" is an outgrowth of this idea.

2. ( ) Sincerity, spontaneity, and faith in emotion as markers of truth. (Doctrine of sensibility)

3. ( ) Belief that what is special in a man is to be valued over what is representative; delight in self-analysis.

4. ( ) Human beings have the power to make, improve and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation

5. ( ) Nature as a source of instruction, delight, and nourishment for the soul; return to nature as a source of inspiration and wisdom; celebration of man’s connection with nature; life in nature often contrasted with the unnatural constraints of society.

6. ( ) Affirmation of the values of democracy and the freedom of the individual. (Jacksonian Democracy)

7. ( ) High value placed on finding connection with fresh, spontaneous in nature and self.

8. ( ) Aspiration after the sublime and the wonderful, that which transcends mundane limits.

9. ( ) The new realities of the industrial and mechanized age are permanent and imminent; people should adapt their world view to accept that what is new is also good and beautiful.

10. ( ) In art, the sublime, the grotesque, the picturesque, and the beautiful with a touch of strangeness all were valued above the Neoclassical principles of order, proportion, and decorum. (Hudson River School of painters)

11. ( ) Interest in the “antique”: medieval tales and forms, ballads, Norse and Celtic mythology; the Gothic.

12. ( ) Belief in perfectibility of man; spiritual force immanent not only in nature but in mind of man.

13. ( ) Belief in organicism rather than Neoclassical rules; development of a unique form in each work.

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The Lady of Shalott

Sung by Loreena McKennitt

PART IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks

complaining

Heavily the low sky raining

Over tower'd Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat

Beneath a willow left afloat,

And round about the prow she wrote

'The Lady of Shalott'.

And down the river's dim expanse

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Seeing all his own mischance--

With a glassy countenance

Did she look to Camelot.

And at the closing of the day

She loosed the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.

(…)

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,

Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darken'd wholly,

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.

For ere she reach'd upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round the prow they read her name,

The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they cross'd themselves for fear,

All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot mused a little space;

He said, "She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,

The Lady of Shalott.

painting by John William Waterhouse

Adapted from a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The source of the inspiration. A Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 1843. In which the Lady is under a curse that she may not look at the world through her own eyes, but must only see it reflected in a mirror. She does not know what the penalty is for looking without the aid of the mirror, and finds that, when she does finally look at Sir Lancelot with her bare eyes, that 'the mirror crack'd from side to side' and that the penalty is death.

PART I

On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

To many-tower'd Camelot;

And up and down the people go,

Gazing where the lilies blow

Round an island there below,

The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,

Little breezes dusk and shiver

Thro' the wave that runs for ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers,

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott.

(…)

Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley,

Hear a song that echoes cheerly

From the river winding clearly,

Down to tower'd Camelot:

And by the moon the reaper weary,

Piling sheaves in uplands airy,

Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy

The Lady of Shalott."

PART II

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be,

And so she weaveth steadily,

And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro' a mirror clear

That hangs before her all the year,

Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near

Winding down to Camelot:

(…)

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,

(…)

The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,

For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights

And music, went to Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed:

"I am half sick of shadows," said

The Lady of Shalott.

PART III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves,

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves

And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd

To a lady in his shield,

That sparkled on the yellow field,

Beside remote Shalott.

(…)

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow'd

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river

He flash'd into the crystal mirror,

"Tirra lirra," by the river

Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro' the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me," cried

The Lady of Shalott.