Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Please explain the following lines from "The Lady of Shallot."To weave the mirror's magic sights, 65 For often thro' the silent nights A funeral,...

What is key to focus on in these lines, that come from the
final stanza of Part II, is the way that Tennyson creates a contrast between the
vibrancy of life in Camelot and the vague, shadowy existence that the Lady of Shalott is
forced to live, who is divorced from such realities and only able to participate in them
as a spectator through her mirror. Thus it is that we are presented with the formality
of a funeral on the one hand, and then the joy of two lovers who have recently been
wedded on the other. In response to these sights, the Lady of Shalott very significantly
says "I am half sick of shadows," which could be argued to foreshadow her choice to
break the curse and leave her protected island, participating in the world that she has
only been a spectator of up until this point. It is also perhaps extremely significant
that the Lady of Shalott utters this line after seeing the lovers together. This could
perhaps indicate her own desire for a relationship, which is of course kindled by the
sight of Sir Lancelot.

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What is the meaning of the 4th stanza of Eliot's Preludes, especially the lines "I am moved by fancies...Infinitely suffering thing".

A century old this year, T.S. Eliot's Preludes raises the curtain on his great modernist masterpieces, The Love...