Personal Response

Personal Response
English 20
Daniel Lin

Victorian literature, a form of writing that emerged during the early seventeenth century, known today as the Victorian era. Originally, these pieces of literature portrayed difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and good luck triumph in the end, where the virtuous are rewarded and wrongdoers punished. However, as the century progressed, the basis of Victorian literature swayed from its original path and became much more complex. The Lady of Shalott portrays the ideal roles of what men and women in that era. It also conveys what romance would have been in the times of Victoria’s reign. Mainly, it informs that one should not attempt to defy fate, and any attempts to do so would result in dire consequences. Such a masterpiece illustrates the environment in which people lived during the Victorian age, as well as the mindsets of people at the time.

During Victorian times many pieces of poetry were written with romanticism as their main themes. They speak of beauty, emotions, utopian visions, and the focus of “self”. One of such, would be, “The Lady of Shalott”. This poem tells a tale about a beautiful lady who lives in a tower overseeing Camelot. She can never look directly out of her window, or a curse will befall on her, so she sits in her tower forever weaving a tapestry of the scenery she sees from her mirror. One day, a valiant knight known as Sir Lancelot passes by, clad in shining armor, catches Lady of Shallots’ eyes, and compels her to look out of her window. Thus far, one would be able to say that during Victorian times, the ideal woman would be a beautiful young damsel in distress, weaving, or doing more housework than anyone would be able to handle, to wait for the ideal man; a heroic knight to save her from her ordeal.

Although one cannot obtain factual evidence of what exactly Victorian literature was meant to portray, but judging from this passage, one can assume that during the 1800s, an ideal portrait of romance would be filled with a beautiful landscape in the background, and in the foreground. Along with this, there would be a stunning knight in shining armor rescuing a sweet, gentle lady that has been held captive by someone or something of incredible evil. A thing such as this could be thought of as romantic propaganda, but there really isn’t much evidence from this poem of what romantic propaganda was like in such times. It would most likely the case that, it is every lady’s dream to be saved by a gallant knight clad in shining armor and fall in love and live happily ever after.

It wasn’t The Lady of Shalott’s destiny to live happily ever after with the one she fell in love with. It was, however, to look outside her window and have the curse of death befall her. After she knew that the curse was upon her, she quickly got into a small boat with letter in hand, and drifted off to Camelot in the last moments of her life. The message here from the author, I believe, would be that during such times, women would be forever bound by a curse placed upon them by the society they lived in. Whether it would be the inability to go to school, or unable to work and make a living by themselves, they would make futile attempts to break off these chains. However, no matter how hard they tried, they could never break off these chains of fate put on them by society, and if they were able to, dire consequences would come to pass, and they would be the examples of any other woman that is to follow in her footsteps. Similar to The Lady of Shallot she tried to break her chains, but it merely resulted in her death.

From this poem, we are able to have a better understanding of past ideals, and how they affected the lives and thoughts of people who lived in the seventeenth century. It has taught us of the ideal roles of men and women, that almost every person has strived to be. The Lady of Shalott also painted a portrait of romantic themes, of what would have been then, and finally, from this poem, we learned that for people to go against the will of society, back then, was the same as going against fate, which would result in disastrous consequences. Overall, this piece of poetry has brought us an image of what life was like back then and how people were thinking in an era we would never be able to directly ask questions of.