Ah, Why Should Life All Labor Be?: Idleness and Death in the Work of Tennyson

This semester, so far, we have focused a considerable amount of time on the discussion of Work in Victorian writing and culture. I found myself thinking this week that there surely must be other subjects to write about; however, I just could not tear myself away from it. Like so many good Victorians, I find myself bound to contemplate Work. This week, I will focus on two of Tennyson’s poems, “The Lotos-Eaters” and “The Lady of Shalott,” and argue that rest and seeking happiness outside of work are treated as pure idleness, which results in death.

Both poems are narratives that tell the story of their respective characters’ downfalls at the hands of searching for something outside of labor and there are many similarities between the two. They both open with descriptions of the landscape, and both specifically describe rivers. In “The Lady of Shalott,” the river contains the island that the Lady resides on and flows to Camelot (1114). It serves two major symbolic functions. Tennyson describes the river thus: “Little breezes dusk and shiver / Through the wave that runs forever / By the island in the river / Flowing down to Camelot” (1.11-4). The river is eternal; it “runs forever,” symbolizing eternal nature of the Lady’s work since she is surrounded by it. It also runs parallel to the road that leads to Camelot where the Lady watches in her mirror “Sometimes a troop of damsels glad / An abbot on an ambling pad / Sometimes a curly shepherd lad / Or long-hared page in crimson clad / Goes by to towered Camelot” (2.55-9). I will examine these characters specifically later, but their connection with the river is that the lady sees them on their way to Camelot while she weaves; therefore, she knows the river leads to Camelot, which is the place she would much rather be. It is what tempts her away from Work. In “The Lotos-Eaters,” the river runs in the opposite direction. The island is described as “A land of streams!” with “the gleaming river seaward flow[ing] / From the inner land” (10, 14-5). In this case, the river is also symbolic in terms of connecting Odysseus’ men with their desires; however, it also serves as a warning to them. It is flowing away from the center of the island, out to sea, toward their home.

Both main characters of these poems are charged with a duty. The Lady must weave “by night and day / A magic web with colors gay” and is certain she will be cursed if she so much as pauses for a break (2.37-8). She watches the outside world in her loom mirror and is envious of the people on their way to Camelot. But close inspection of who she sees reveals a suggestion that those people are working as well. She sees an abbot, a shepherd, and a page all on their way to Camelot, all people with job titles. The troop of damsels perhaps has now business in Camelot; however, the fact that they are damsels suggests that they are young girls perhaps not of laboring age (though in the Victorian, period that would have to be quite young.) She also sees “two young lovers, lately wed” and announces, “‘I am half sick of shadows’” (2.70-1). Her decision to leave is based on seeing Sir Lancelot pass by and hearing him sing. This decision is framed as error because she assumes that she is trapped by her work while everyone outside of Shalott is free. While the people she sees pass by are not physically held by anything, they are still bound to their work. Odysseus’ crew, comparatively, openly questions the validity of labor as more important or necessary than rest. They ask “What pleasure can we have / To war with evil? Is there any peace / In ever climbing up the climbing wave?” (4.93-5). Unlike the Lady, Odysseus crew recognizes that they are choosing death over labor. They ask why they alone should have to work while “All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave / In silence—ripen, fall, and cease” (4.96-7). The crew, because they chose to eat the lotus fruit, is now cursed to accept death over the labor to journey back to Ithaca. The implication is clear: To choose idleness over Duty is to openly choose death.

The Lady’s choice to follow her heart to Lancelot and Camelot is struck down. She becomes a victim, similar to Louisa in Hard Times, of the Victorian call to Duty. Louisa is told by her father to never wonder. Toward the end of the novel, she asks, “Where are the sentiments of my heart?” indicating that she has spent her life not devoted to following her heart but to her Duty as instructed by her father (Dickens 216). The Lady, however, makes the fatal mistake of following her heart in lieu of Duty. As soon as she looks to her heart’s desire, Camelot, and decides to leave, the speaker tells us “The mirror cracked from side to side / ‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried / The Lady of Shalott” (3.115-6). Furthermore, even though she knows that she is now cursed, she still makes the attempt to travel to Camelot. She freezes to death on the way there. Her death is mourned; however, Lancelot’s final words, which end the poem, are very telling. He says, “‘God in his mercy lend her grace, / The Lady of Shalott’” implying that she has sinned. Yet the prayer for mercy and grace also imply that there was at least some nobility in the Lady following her heart. Her tragic fate is a result of her ignorance. She does not realize that the people she sees in the mirror are working as well, even though they look like are not. The poem suggests that if she had been able to find the contentment she thought she would find in Camelot in her fulfillment of her duty instead, she would have lived, and she would have been happy.

The crew’s choice to remain on the island is reconciled with no such noble prayer. They openly condemn themselves to death. However, they do attempt to be reconciled in a different way. They point out that in the world outside the island, there are “Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, / Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands,” yet despite all this, people “Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil” (8.160-1, 166). Their argument is that such work is hopeless and worthless in the face of all the horror in the world. Ironically, such work is elevated through their speech. The reader is made to realize that the crew’s position is the one that is in fact hopeless because it simply abandons hope all together. Those who work may do so in vain, to a certain extent, but they are nobler because they do not abandon hope no matter how difficult it may be to fulfill their Duty to Work.

Works Cited

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. 1854. Ed. George Stade. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. “The Lady of Shalott.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. Vol. 2. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2000. 1114-8.

—. “The Lotos-Eaters.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. Vol. 2. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2000. 1119-23.