The Lady of Shalott

This article is about the lyrical ballad. For the Waterhouse painting, see The Lady of Shalott (painting). For the rose, see Rosa 'Lady of Shalott'.
"Shalott" redirects here. For the onion, see Shallot. For other uses, see Shalott (disambiguation).

The Lady of Shalott
by Alfred Tennyson
An 1853 illustration by Elizabeth Siddal
WrittenMay 1832, revised in 1842
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Arthurian literature
FormBallad
MeterIambic tetrameter with isolated lines in iambic trimeter[1]
Rhyme schemeAaaabcccb
Publication date1832 & 1842
Lines180 (1832)
171 (1842)
Full text
The Lady of Shalott at Wikisource

"The Lady of Shalott" (/ʃəˈlɒt/) is a lyrical ballad by the 19th-century English poet Alfred Tennyson and one of his best-known works. Inspired by the 13th-century Italian short prose text Donna di Scalotta, the poem tells the tragic story of Elaine of Astolat, a young noblewoman stranded in a tower up the river from Camelot. Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one published in 1832 (in Poems, incorrectly dated 1833),[2] of 20 stanzas, the other in 1842, of 19 stanzas (also in a book named Poems), and returned to the story in "Lancelot and Elaine". The vivid medieval romanticism and enigmatic symbolism of "The Lady of Shalott" inspired many painters, especially the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers, as well as other authors and artists.

  1. ^ ""The Lady of Shalott" Construction". mseffie.com.
  2. ^ "The Lady of Shalott by Lord Alfred Tennyson". online-literature.com.