Sex Ed: Sexual Politics within The Lady of Shalott

We all remember the awkward moments of sexual education class, when we were still too immature to tale any of it seriously. Girls would blush, boys would laugh hysterically, and teachers would be frustrated to the point of pulling the hair straight out of their own heads. And we also can easily remember the myths our parents and superiors would fill our head with in order to scare us away from having relations with one another. One of the most common myths, and most laughable, is:

“ If you have sex, you will die.”

Now of course, we know this isn’t true., either by experience, or the simple logic that babies do not come from storks, and we are in fact, here. But what we may not know is how long this myth has been in circulation, and where it originates. However, we can trace it as far back as the 19th century, within the lines of Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott.”

The reading of poetry, we have learned, was a very common practice in the 19th century. And, considering they didn’t have televisions back then, the infamous They needed a way to get their message out to the masses. Poetry, it seems, was an excellent method.

Of course, many people read Tennyson’s poem as being center around the idea of the artist and life, and the relationship between the two. The two different symbols being represented by Shalott and the “many-towered Camelot.”  It would seem that the question is simply answered, being that the two can not coincide, and is represented by the death of the artist; the embowered Lady of Shalott.  Now, dear reader, you may be asking yourself where I get the idea of sex, and therefore, the idea of the fair Lady dying because of it.  My answer, is this.

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro' the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me," cried 

All through parts I and II, the Lady of  Shalott is happy in the tower. Her colors are “gay,“ her songs are “cheery.” She is seemingly content with her curse. She does not know where it came from, but that she can only view the world from the mirror, not directly. However, one day, she sees Lancelot ride by on his way to Camelot. So struck is she by him, that she goes to the window to look upon him herself, breaking the mirror, and brining the full curse upon her. Her feminine desire is what causes the curse to come at her full force, ending her life. Because we know that she is aware of the details of the curse, we can easily infer that her desire is strong enough to even be called lust.

So in the end, it is her lust, that ends her life.  We can take this as social commentary, about how the downfall of a woman is the loss of her virtue. Simply put:

Lady Sees Man and Swoonsà Lady’s Lust Brings Upon Curseà Lady Dies In Search Of Lust Worthy Man.