She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through 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 The Lady of Shalott.
Interpretation
The quote illustrates the theme of isolation and the consequences of stepping beyond one's bounds.
The Lady of Shalott, trapped in her own reality, breaks free from her constraints only to face dire consequences. Her journey signifies the transition from safety to danger and serves as a poignant metaphor for the struggles between desire and the constraints of societal expectations.
In practice
In a discussion about personal freedom, one might reference this quote to highlight the potential dangers of pursuing one's desires.
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
Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.
It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, worldview and thoughts.
Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.
Music is a lady that I still love because she gives me the air that I breathe. We need all sorts of nourishment. And music satisfies and nourishes the hunger within ourselves for connection and harmony.
We usually evaluate creative process in terms of how much feeling or thinking was behind the work or how well the work was done. Isn't there any other way of appreciating the process? What if the standard of excellence was how fully present the artist was during the process?
I'm a frotteur, someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible.
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