Words: 538
Wright starts her critique with the Lady’s tapestry which as she points out has been removed from reality three times. The Lady has been cursed to die if ever she chooses to turn away from her work and gaze out on the real world. When she makes the choice to pursue Sir. Lancelot she dies which has led previous critics to have suggested that the tapestry is destroyed as well. Such critics have come to this conclusion via line 114 of the poem “Out flew the web and floated wide;” Wright argues that this is a false assumption as it “Does not mention estruction–simply a movement in space. She points out that the mirror which the Lady uses to see the reflected world and weave her web is not simply there for the sake of the story. The mirror is something weavers actually used to see what they were weaving as they looked at the back side of the tapestry. Wright then expressed the complex levels of reflexion other critics have drawn from the poem. Lancelot is reflected into the river which is reflected into the mirror which the lady then weaves and observes in the mirror.
She notes that it is important hat this is one way relationship, the lady is never reflected from the mirror into the river to be seen by those outside her tower. This Wright suggests relates to important ideas about poetry and fiction and the nature of the Lady’s artistic expression, her tapestry. Wright discusses the nature of poetry as consisting of things as they appear not how they exist in reality as well as the problematic life of an artist. She infers that the web is the Lady’s poetry or art object. The Lady’s art is a reflection of a reality to which she is ignorant. When she sees Sir.
Lancelot she turns and the web floats up and out. Wright concludes that contrary to these previous critics assumptions that the web is not destroyed with the life of the Lady of Shallot but remains in reality after the death of the artist. Wright ends her critique with the fitting statement “The art object, I have argued, has changed its nature once released from the process of production; we only know that the Lady died: her art ‘flew. “‘ I agree with Jane Wright on the meaning of the work and the fate of the tapestry. I think that the poem itself was Tennyson’s own tapestry.
He often wrote of isolation because I think he, like many artist, feel isolated. I think that is part of being an artist, an inability to participate in the world around one because the duty of the artist is to observe and create something from that. When the lady chose to turn away from her art she was betraying her purpose and without that purpose she dies; leaving behind the beautiful object that she created to exist on forever. The poem is an excellent example of life imitating art, imitating life. Tennyson relates his own life and feeling into those of the Lady in is poem which is then influences reality by being read.