- And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance -
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott"
Pimping Tennyson
If you enjoyed the poem Mariana (which I linked to yesterday), you might like some other poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Here are a few of my favorites:
There are lots more poems by him online at the University of Toronto site.
His most famous work is In Memoriam (A.H.H.), a long collection of poems he wrote after the death of his best friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. I like some parts of In Memoriam, sections of it, but as a whole I find it somewhat overwhelming. The poems were written over the course of about seventeen years, I think, and they range from intense outpourings of grief to erudite questions about god, nature, and poetry itself. But you can check it out for yourself, if you like: In Memoriam (A.H.H.).
I love Tennyson, of course. He was a great old Victorian poet, and my dissertation topic was Victorian literature, after all. But I must admit, I love the Romantic poets Coleridge and Keats even more. Maybe I will do some recommendations for them as well. If you're really lucky.
About the picture: The Lady of Shalott (1888) by John William Waterhouse, a follower of the Pre-Raphaelites. Based on the poem by Tennyson, the painting is housed at the Tate Gallery in London. Waterhouse also painted two other versions of the Lady of Shalott (depicting different passages of the poem).
<< Home