Beginning of Essay
'...Just as the storm clouds often slay The scarcely breathing new born day.' 1 One of the most popular of Tennyson's poems, The Lady of Shalott relates the tragic story of an extremely lonely young lady longing for a soulmate. A poem of "technical virtuosity, ....

Middle of Essay
.... both the subject of a yearning, introverted young lady and the bleak solution, Tennyson's poem may be readily compared to two other, albeit larger scale, masterpieces of the early 1830's – Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet" and, even more notably, Pushkin's "Onegin" –, each dealing with the same kind of pastoral, embowered, dreamy, grave and generally misunderstood girls or young women. This 'caste' sticks out of its rustic environment like a sore thumb, often being regarded by their own relatives and acquaintances as hopeless misfits, spinsters or nuns to be; being highly sensitive, imaginative and deep-feeling, they find it exceptionally hard, e ....