Stars in “The Lady of Shalott”
“The Lady of Shalott” is a poem about isolation and mental illness caused by addiction to “screens”. The author of the poem is Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who was born in 1809 and died in 1892.* The central character of the poem is a woman who has completely isolated herself. She never looks beyond the walls of her castle, which is itself isolated, located out in a river on an island called Shalott. Rather, she only views the outside world through her phone’s screen, via her web connection. Indeed, she has become so obsessed with viewing the world only through a screen that she has come to believe she will bring down a curse upon herself if she ever looks outside. But then, one early winter’s day, as she watches through some web cam the river road that passes near her castle, she sees the knight Lancelot passing right by her place, on his way to Camelot. She is so smitten … Continue reading →