The Lady of Shalott: A Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood Muse/A Tragic Fairy Tale Trope

 The Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood was an artistic movement during the Victorian Era which prided itself on bucking gender norms and societal ideas through their works. This can be seen throughout the pieces from notable Pre Raphaelites like John Everett Millais (Ophelia), William Holman Hunt (The Hireling Shepherd), and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Lady Lilith). In Alfred Lord Tennyson's 1855 book of poems, artists Rossetti and Hunt illustrated pictures for The Lady of Shalott, in which they seem to celebrate the renegade woman and yet also, memorialize the fact that the moment she does something she is not supposed to, receives capital punishment. Gender norms and societal standards for women are upheld in these depictions, despite the Pre Raphaelites being against these standards in the first place. The Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood was eager to defy gender conventions but, in this case, they accidentally slipped into representing the helpless heroine women trope depicted in fairy tales.

The poem, The Lady of Shalott is about a cursed woman locked in a tower who is not able to look outside and, the moment she does so to see the outside world is doomed to death. To men she is a muse, but to women, The Lady of Shalott becomes a warning symbol for females who dare to flaunt the rules set out for them. The moment The Lady of Shalott feels a pull to go against what is expected of her and yearn to leave her home and housework, she is cursed to death. 


The men's art and writing depicts The Lady of Shalott, as the heroine in a tragic fairy tale trope that all the men a part of this movement wanted to use as artistic inspiration for their projects and for all their female muses to emulate. The Lady of Shalott drawings became the first of centering women as the muses of the Pre Raphaelite era, but also put them as cursed figures. Although the paintings and poem romanticize her tragic life, it effectively reads as a cautionary for women if they want to do anything besides what is expected of them. By the end, she (The Lady of Shalott) has very little autonomy and although had so much inside her about the world and her feelings, she is only remembered by Sir Lancelot as “a beautiful face.” This language makes women ornamental and disregards any conception for the intellectual and personal thoughts they have. 


The Lady of Shalott especially inspired Pre Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. In Tennyson’s book of poems, a drawing by William Henry Hunt (right) portrays The Lady of Shalott entrapped in her home. She is amongst her housework and seemingly so tangled up in it that she cannot move. Or, really, that she is bound to her housework and home with little opportunity for mobility outside of it. In the outside window the knight Sir Lancelot is gallivanting as he pleases, but she is (literally, in this picture) bound to her work even as every fiber and hair wants to be free of it and be able to look outside. The Lady of Shalott has no control of her surroundings, the way the man does. In the later picture by Rossetti (below), is a depiction after her death. In it Sir Lancelot, who is the only other human in The Lady of Shalott, is looking over her in death. When she first sees him he is riding through the fields and when she dies, he is able to enter and exit her tower with no consequence. The Lady of Shalott is killed for wanting this while Sir Lancelot is able to be free and go anywhere. Much like in the Victorian time period of rigid roles, men were able to do and go wherever they wanted and women were mainly forced to stay home. The Lady of Shalott’s death is the most extreme reason why a woman should not leave her home and housework because The moment she wants to leave, even only for a respite, her home sphere, she is sentenced to death.

The works done by Rossetti and Hunt are genuinely trying to celebrate this woman in a story they admire, but really it ends up portraying the gender-normed view (even accidentally) that men had and wanted of women during this time. Based on what the Pre Raphaelites preached and portrayed in their artistry, they would object to the interpretation that writings and depictions of The Lady of Shalott uphold these Victorian-normed messages. But despite the fact that these artists seem progressive their opinions on gender norms, they nonetheless frame the image of The Lady of Shalott as a tragic heroine in a fairy tale trope. Much like heroines in olden fairy tales, she is cursed and contained by society, and by the end of the story is (capitally) punished for it. Although considered beautiful by all, the world never gets to know about her as a person. She only exists in tragedy and her rebellion ends in death. Rossetti and Hunt’s works outline how ingrained gender stereotypes were, even during the most progressive people and artistic movement from this time period. These painters created the Pre Raphaelites in order to buck societal conformities and try to move away from outdated gender norms, but in the depictions and hero-worship of The Lady of Shalott they fall into tropes and normative thinking of their time period.


The artists of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood thought they were celebrating the story of a main character female, but are ultimately celebrating a capital punishment she receives for going against the rules. The women a part of this movement were penalized because of the image that this poem projects about “rebellious” women. And, any work they created would be undermined by the Victorian era's opinions of women who do not play by the conventional rules dictated by society. Even as the modern and dynamic artists of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood strived to portray an equitable society in their art, the members still upheld very normal societal ideals about women through their interest in The Lady of Shalott. 

Comments