Previous

Tennyson’s poetry

To see how “The Lady of Shalott” fits in with Tennyson’s other major poetic works, please consult this overview guide.

T. H. White, The Once and Future King

Tennyson is one of the most famous adaptors of Arthurian legend in the English language. For another major adaptation of these stories, consider T. H. White’s great novel from 1958.

Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

Spenser wrote his allegorical epic The Faerie Queene in the late sixteenth century. However, in order to make it seem that the poem could have been written in some distant past, he used deliberately-archaic language and invented his own nine-line stanza form. Tennyson plays a similar game in “The Lady of Shalott.” Though his diction is less obviously archaic than Spenser’s, Tennyson uses a unique nine-line stanza form that somewhat resembles Spenser’s, which helps give the poem an antique feeling.

Previous section Historical & Literary Context

Take a Study Break