The Lady of Shalott: A Victorian Ballad

The Lady of Shalott

Alfred Tennyson

A Victorian Ballad

The poem is loosely based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat, as recounted in a thirteenth-century Italian novella titled Donna di Scalotta (No. LXXXII in the collection Cento Novelle Antiche); the earlier version is closer to the source material than the latter. Tennyson focused on the Lady's "isolation in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two subjects not even mentioned in Donna di Scalotta."

"The Lady of Shalott" is a Victorian ballad by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). Like his other early poems - "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere," and "Galahad" - the poem recasts Arthurian subject matter loosely based on medieval sources. Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one published in 1833, of 20 stanzas, the other in 1842, of 19 stanzas.