The Lady of Shallot Essay -- Lady of Shalott Essays

The Lady of Shallot    "The Lady of Shallot," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, acts as a voice for people struggling with materialism of the industrial age. Tennyson became famous for reflecting the "idealism of an industrious society that was nonetheless racked by deep doubts about its materialism" (The Longman Anthology Of British Literature p. 1908). The curse of the mysterious lady of the poem could be thought of   as the curse of the people subcombing to the dreaded materialism and giving up the Victorian innocent ideals. Furthermore, the lady represents Tennyson himself as he suffered from a personal battle between the desire for glamour's fame, and the need to stay an innocent poet. In Looking at the viewpoint of Tennyson towards Victorian tailed by an industrial society, we can both get a glance at the curse of the poet and the lady of his poem. Before Tennyson became rich and famous, the poet lived in desolation both financially and socially.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tennyson embodied the "Victorian gospel of hard work", as evidenced in the way he "labored patiently, in poverty, w...