Who is this? And what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, All the Knights at Camelot; But Lancelot mused a little space He said, "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on beauty and the human response to it, encapsulating themes of admiration and the mystique surrounding the Lady of Shalott.
In this excerpt from Tennyson's poem, Lancelot admires the Lady of Shalott's beauty, suggesting an appreciation for artistic or romantic ideals. The passage captures the complexity of human emotions as the knights, surrounded by royal cheer, also experience fear, hinting at the duality of life and the consequences of desire, especially in the context of the Lady's tragic fate.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about beauty in art and literature.
Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.
How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
Earth is dry to the centre,_x000D_ But spring, a new comer,_x000D_ A spring rich and strange,_x000D_ Shall make the winds blow_x000D_ Round and round,_x000D_ Thro' and thro',_x000D_ Here and there,_x000D_ Till the air_x000D_ And the ground_x000D_ Shall be fill'd with life anew.
O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. - Tithonus
The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader's heart.
Modernity signifies the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art of which the other half is the eternal and the immutable.
Much of life becomes background, but it is the province of art to throw buckets of light into the shadows and make life new again.
That's what happens with writing. Ingredients bubble and cook. Material becomes substance.
Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place.
When you're young, with less on the line, it's easier to be audacious, to experiment. So I introduced the concerns of my generation - politics, sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, etc. - to the comics page, which for many years caused a rolling furor.
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