Selected Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,/The slow clock ticking,’ – the use of the onomatopoeic ‘chirrup’ for ‘chirp’ provides a sudden, unexpected sound, contrasting with the rhythm of the ‘slow clock ticking,’ for which Tennyson employs three strong stresses in a row.

‘…and the sound/Which to the wooing wind aloof/The poplar made,’ – There is a play on ‘wooing,’ which acts both as a sound effect and, an ironic reminder of Angelo’s wooing of Mariana. Note Tennyson’s frequent tendency to use assonance on long vowels.

‘…did all confound/Her sense;’ – This is further confirmation of Mariana’s mental deterioration. Tennyson begins to replace end-stopped lines with frequent enjambment and strong caesura effects in this stanza to emphasise the gradual breakdown in her mental state.

‘but most she loath'd the hour/When the thick-moted sunbeam lay’ – It is visible as a streak because of all the dust that fills the dilapidated house.

‘Athwart the chambers,’ – ‘athwart’ again – as though forcing a way in.

‘Was sloping toward his western bower.’ – A ‘bower’ is literally a bed or place of sleep, another reference to Mariana’s circumstances. She hates this time of day most because it confirms that Angelo will not come.

‘Then, said she, "I am very dreary,…O God, that I were dead!"’ – The slight changes to the last refrain emphasise the hopelessness of her situation. A tiny sense of her personality finally comes through fleetingly. The whole poem is famous as a character portrayal in which we never see the character, and only externals are described.

THE LADY OF SHALOTT

The story of this poem is derived from the love-triangle between Lancelot, Guinevere and Elaine (the Maid of ‘Astolat’, of which ‘Shalott’ is a form). Tennyson’s source was not one of the famous collections of Arthurian romance, however, but an obscure Italian novella called La Donna di Scalotto , which inspired one or two details of the poem. In fact, the storyline is, in all its most important elements, Tennyson’s own.