tirra lirra by the river lady of shalott

'The Lady of Shalott' was a favourite work for artists. Some consider 'The Lady of Shalott' to be representative of the dilemma that faces artists, writers, and musicians: to create work about and celebrating the world, or to enjoy the world by simply living in it.

She arrives frozen to death, and among the knights and ladies who see her is Lancelot: She leaves her tower, finds a boat upon which she writes her name, and floats down the river to Camelot, chanting a mournful song, dying as she sings. She finally succumbs to temptation and looks directly out when Sir Lancelot rides past the tower singing, and as she looks towards Camelot: One day, however, seeing Lancelot in her mirror, she realises more than ever how sick she is of her life, of seeing the world only through shadows and reflections. The shadowy glimpses of life beyond the tower tempt her to look, although she knows that to do so will bring the curse to its unknown end. Thus she watches the world through a mirror, and weaves what she sees in a magic web. She is under a curse: if she looks directly at Camelot, some unknown doom will befall her. The Lady of Tennyson's poem lives in a tower on the island of Shalott, in a river near Camelot. However the original story of Elaine is quite different from that of the Lady, whose name is never mentioned and who is, it seems, not quite human. Tennyson returned to the story in 'Lancelot and Elaine' (in his 1859 Idylls of the King). 'The Lady of Shalott' (of which Tennyson wrote two versions: one in 1833, of twenty verses, the other in 1842 of nineteen verses) is loosely based upon a story from Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur concerning Elaine of Astolat, a maiden who falls in love with Lancelot, but dies of grief when he cannot return her love. 'The Lady of Shalott', a romantic poem by the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892).

Tirra lirra by the river lady of shalott