The Lady of Shalott

By: Lord Alfred Tennyson

Page 808-812

Getting Ready to Read

(in your journals)
What do you remember from Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight, Morte DArthur, and Romantic
Writings?
This is a poem about a woman who has been placed
under a curse. Make a list of details of other stories,
fables, and fairy tales you know in which people are
under spells or curses.
What happens in these tales when the spell is broken.
Writing 2.3: Exploring significance
Flexible in thinking: tries to understand both sides of an issue

Surveying the Text

How is the poem structured?

Background Information: This poem was

written during Tennysons ten years of
silence. There are many connections
between the poem and his own life.

Reading 2.1 Analyze features of texts.

Uses past knowledge in new situations and connects two different ideas.
ideas

Review
Alliteration the repetition of
consonant sounds that are close
to one another.
Assonance the repetition of
similar vowel sounds followed
by different consonant sounds
in words that are close together.
Opposition ideas that are
opposite

First Reading
Disc 13, Selection 5

Rereading the Text

Reread Part I
What is the setting?
What is the Rhyme scheme?
What oppositions do you find in the first stanza?

Reading Comprehension 2.2

Listens with understanding and builds on others ideas.

Analyzing Stylistic Choices

What are the connotations of the word gray?
(line 15)
What does the use of the word suggest about
the Ladys existence?

Literary Analysis 3.3. Analyze how irony, tone, mood, style, and "sound" of
language achieve specific aesthetic purposes.
Persevering: Stay on task to figure it out.

Rereading the Text

Reread Part II

Why does the Lady stay indoors and weave night

and day?
What is her magic web (line 38)?
What role does the mirror play in the Ladys life?
Why is the footnote about the mirror clear
particularly important?
How doe the descriptions of the other people differ
from that of the Lady?
What oppositions do you find in lines 55-70?

Reading Comprehension 2.2

Listens with understanding and builds on others ideas.

Analyzing Stylistic Choices

How do lines 66-72 foreshadow Lancelots
arrival and the Ladys actions in the second half
of the poem?
What yearnings do you think the Lady
expresses when she exclaims, I am half sick of
shadows (71)
Critics have seen this poem as a commentary
on the plight of the artist. In the light of this
interpretation, what is meant by the Ladys
complaint in lines 71-72?
Literary Analysis 3.3. Analyze how irony, tone, mood, style, and "sound" of
language achieve specific aesthetic purposes.
Persevering: Stay on task to figure it out.

Rereading the Text

Reread Part III

Find examples of images used to

describe Lancelot. How do they
contrast with images of the Lady?
What change do you notice in the
rhyming words in the first stanza?
Why do you think this change is
significant?
Reading Comprehension 2.2
Listens with understanding and builds on others ideas.

Analyzing Stylistic Choices

Where is the climax of the plot?
How do you know this?
Why do you think the author devotes
so much space to his description of
Sir Lancelot?
How does the description relate to
the Ladys action and to the overall
meaning of the poem?
Literary Analysis 3.3. Analyze how irony, tone, mood, style, and "sound" of
language achieve specific aesthetic purposes.
Persevering: Stay on task to figure it out.

Rereading the Text

Reread Part IV

What mischance (bad

luck) is referred to in
line 129?
What is the
significance of the
repeated emphasis on
the mirror, the tapestry,
and this song (152153)

Reading Comprehension 2.2

Listens with understanding and builds on others ideas.

Rereading the Text

What does the mirror show the
lady?
Why does the lady leave the
island?
How are the reapers aware of the
ladys presence on the island?
What is the crisis in the poem?

Analyzing Stylistic Choices

What is significant about the
Lady dressing in white?
How does the Ladys song (142153) compare with that of
Lancelots (107)?
Literary Analysis 3.3. Analyze how irony, tone, mood, style, and "sound" of
language achieve specific aesthetic purposes.
Persevering: Stay on task to figure it out.

Overall Analysis
What
commentary
do you think
Tennyson is
making on
the role and
life of an
artist?

Literary Analysis 3.3. Analyze how irony, tone, mood, style, and "sound" of
language achieve specific aesthetic purposes.
Persevering: Stay on task to figure it out.