The Lady Of Shalott Essay

Berthe Morisot was born in 1841, a time when it was still quite difficult for women to become professional artists as the art world was predominantly male. She continually faced criticism and encountered difficulties due to her sex. Despite this, Morisot was able to establish herself as a respected artist whose work only continues to become more highly regarded with time. Her place in art history alongside such Impressionist artists as Claude Monet, Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt, and Edgar Degas, is a testament to her ambition. She was an artist who “aspired to greatness” who “was not content to take second place.” Her painting Young Woman Knitting of 1883 is a excellent example of her style and technique. To fully comprehend how this painting is typical of her work, it is helpful to study her life, as well as her artistic development, especially in her paintings.

Prior to and throughout the late middle ages, women have been portrayed in literature as vile and corrupt. During this time, Christine de Pizan became a well educated woman and counteracted the previous notions of men’s slander against women. With her literary works, Pizan illustrated to her readers and women that though education they can aspire to be something greater than what is written in history. Through the use of real historical examples, Christine de Pizan’s, The Book of the City of Ladies, acts as a defense against the commonly perceived notions of women as immoral.

a song. It is a very much happier poem than Morte d' Arthur. The tone

The imagery in the poem, specifically natural imagery, helps use the reader’s senses to develop a vivid depiction of the speaker’s connection to nature and dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality. The speaker’s continued use of the “moon” reflects her attribution of feminine identity and idolistic character to the moon. As opposed to referencing herself and her personal insomnia, she uses the imagery of the moon “beyond sleep” to convey her internal struggles with insomnia and her reality. Throughout the poem, the speaker also refers to shining, reflective surfaces, such as “a body of water or a mirror”, to describe the inverted reality in which the speaker experiences reciprocated love. Reflective surfaces often invert the image that is projected into them, seemingly distorting the true nature and reality of the projected image. The speaker’s reference to this reflective imagery highlights her desire to escape the burden of a patriarchal society and assume an independent and free feminine identity. Specifically, the use of natural imagery from the references to the “moon” and “a body of water” convey the speaker’s desire to take refuge within the Earth or in the feminine identity of the Earth, Mother Earth. Feminine identities are often related and associated with aspects of nature due to the natural cycle of the menstrual period and the natural process of procreation. The speaker takes advantage of these connotations to suggest Earth and natural imagery as an escape from the man-made terrors of male dominated society. In the second stanza, the speaker uses extensive imagery to develop metaphors conveying the speaker’s experience of jealousy of the moon

The poem the Mirror is about beauty standards. She talks about how, as a mirror, she shows exactly what she sees and she tells no lies. The narrator states, “I am not cruel, only truthful.” When the narrator becomes a lake, she can also only show truth and reflection of one’s self. The Mirror represents the truth of who we actually are, even if society has portrayed us as or forced us to be someone else.

The Book of the City of Ladies During the renaissance many different views of leadership surfaced. Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, and William Shakespeare’s Richard III each present distinct views of what would make a good leader during the renaissance period. Shakespeare and Christine de Pizan’s views align most closely with Plato’s.

Poem Evaluation: “what the mirror said” The poem “what the mirror said”, written by Lucille Clifton, acts as an inspiring, motivational poem for women. While trying to convince the woman looking into the mirror that she is important, trying to help her capture her inner beauty, and helping the subject realize her worth in the world as an individual, the poet builds a theme of personal perception. The notions of beauty, worth and uniqueness, and complexity in “what the mirror said”, are emphasized through metaphors, symbolism, repetition, and spacious stanzas. There are always multiple perceptions on what poetry is trying to portray, which is part of the fun of poetry analysis.

George Gascoigne’s sonnet, “For That He Looked Not upon Her,” portrays a sullen man, hurt by the woman he loved. Through the uses of form, diction, and imagery, the sonnet evokes a complex attitude in each quatrain elaborating on the stages of torment the speaker receives from his ex-lover. By using these literary devices, the speaker portrays the dangers of desire and the conflicts that arise from within it. Gascoigne conveys a solemn and melancholy complex attitude developed throughout the use of such literary devices. The attitude of the speaker, expressed through the form of the sonnet, explains the dangers of gazing at the woman who burned him.

An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.

A woman during the 16th century did not have the freedoms that a woman today enjoys. During Shakespeare’s life wives were not allowed the independence they take pleasure in today. Therefore, the role of the mother for Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is not commanding or authoritative because of the time period Shakespeare lived.

The second stanza of Lord Byron's poem focuses on the woman's perfect face. The beautiful shades and rays of the womans complexion make her a “nameless grace” (2, 2). This conveys the idea that her inner beauty is reflected in her outer beauty in the sense that she is pure and innocent on the inside so she radiates that beauty on the outside. This stanza reveals her serene thoughts:

The portrait is displayed horizontally with a gold trimmed frame. The subject is a female that looks to be in her early 20’s sitting upright on a large brown chair. If the viewer travels up the painting the first indication of the woman’s class is her satin, blue dress. The saturated blue shines and falls in the light like water. Paired with the dress are her exceptionally detailed endings to her sleeves. The lace is even painted as though it is translucent, allowing a little of the blue dress to show through the sleeve. Flowers throughout history have symbolized innocence of a woman and her virginity. The repeating theme of flowers, in the sleeve cuffs and ribbon) in the woman’s attired suggests her purity or innocent nature. Another very details section of the painting includes the corset/torso details. The sewing suggests texture in the torso with small beading in between. Towards the top of the chest in the center, the female seems to bear an extravagant, ribbon piece with a tear drop bead in the center. The light pink

The Lady of Shallot can be interpreted as a symbol of artists and their commitment to their work, in this poem represented by weaving, but also paralleling Tennyson and his poetry. She sacrificed herself to her passion and ironically Sir Lancelot made her into nothing more than a piece of art, he said, “She has a lovely face; / God in his mercy lend her grace” (line 169) she can no longer weave “A magic web with colors gay,” (line 38) rather, just be objectified into a dead-pale beauty not able to offer anymore creativity.

One of the various themes present in Romanticism is emotion. A major part of the Romanticism movement was placing focus on emotion as opposed to reason. In paintings where a central theme is emotion, artists use the sublimity and picturesque aspects of nature to symbolize feeling or convey a narrative. In The Lady of Shalott (1888) by John William Waterhouse, the subject of the painting is a woman, sitting alone in a boat. It takes inspiration from a scene from a poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The poem tells the story of the young woman and her unrequited love for Sir Lancelot. Even though the focus of the image is the sorrowful woman, the composition

Tennyson portrays the isolation of women through the reoccurring theme of Romanticism, this is shown through the poet’s constant associations with nature being the centre of the poem. The poet focuses more on the surroundings of the main character as she lives “By the island in the river…And the silent isle embowers The Lady of Shalott.” Tennyson presents the speaker to hide the details of the actual lady, her imprisonment and the curse which leads us to believe she is a mystery as the nature around her seems overpowering and consuming her. Tennyson portrays the lady in the poem to be an embodiment of a typical woman of the contemporary culture as he describes ‘A charmed web’ which the woman is ‘weaving, either night or day’. The ‘web’ can be a symbol of slavery but also a symbol of creativity and possibility. When the woman tries to turn away from the web she refuses to be a slave and ultimately