Loreena McKennitt, “The Lady of Shalott”

Loreena McKennitt’s “The Lady of Shalott”: A Musical Interpretation

by Talia Hunter | February 24, 2021

Many people know Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1842 poem “The Lady of Shalott” because of the 1985 television series Anne of Green Gables. The poem narrates the tragic story of a young noblewoman who is oppressed by a mysterious curse. She is unable to leave her loom, nor her tower, situated on an island outside King Arthur’s Camelot. She is unknown to the people, referred to as a mere fairy by surrounding farmers. To satisfy her desire to see the world, the Lady observes the colourful city through a mirror and weaves elaborate tapestries of what she sees, singing all the while. However, the Lady becomes tired of witnessing only a shadow of real life, and, upon seeing in her mirror the Knight Lancelot galloping to Camelot, she leaves her loom and casts her eyes out of her window, bringing the curse into motion. She exits her tower and attempts to reach Camelot on a boat, on whose prow she has carved her name. The Lady sings as she drifts down the river but dies before she reaches her destination. The tale ends as Sir Lancelot and other Camelot nobles discover the Lady’s body. All look away except Lancelot, who admires the Lady’s lovely face.

Scholars have interpreted the meaning of this lyrical poem in many different ways. Some describe it as an analogy for the isolation of the artist who is at odds with society, and who by observing the world cannot truly experience it. Others believe it tells a story of the sexuality and nature of women as they were viewed in the Victorian era; for Victorian women, “purity” was ideal, and desire was shamed. While some believe that the poem embodies female empowerment, as the Lady of Shalott leaves her tower and defies her mysterious oppressor, still others claim that the work poses the exact opposite message, framing the Lady as the ultimate symbol of passivity in her eternal sleep. Finally, scholars have posited that the poem reflects Victorian morals regarding suicide. Clearly, there is no one “correct” reading of the poem; each reader can interpret their own message or moral from the work. In some ways, this malleability of meaning is part of the power of the poem, and of poetry in general.

In 1991, Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt set “The Lady of Shalott” to music on her album The Visit. In this song, McKennitt uses fourteen of Tennyson’s nineteen stanzas (from the 1842 version of the poem).

Given the expressive nature of music and its ability to generate meaning, I wonder if McKennitt’s setting offers the listener her preferred reading of Tennyson’s original poem. I also wonder how much potential there is for generating meaning that is supplemental to the text in a context that favours repetitive musical structure (the verse/chorus construction). Having listened to this song many times, I would like to propose that Loreena McKennitt interprets the poem as the empowering story of the Lady’s quest for and attainment of freedom from bondage.

My supporting analysis follows the thinking of Lawrence Zbikowski in his 1999 article “The Blossoms of ‘Trockne Blumen’: Music and Text in the Early Nineteenth Century.” In his paper, Zbikowski creates conceptual integration networks (CINs) that map out the relationships between music and text and the resulting blended space, which creates a large part of the meaning of a song. I would like to propose the following CIN for McKennitt’s version of “The Lady of Shalott”:

In this song, McKennitt poses a contrast between the Lady at the beginning of the song and the Lady at the end; at the beginning, she is trapped and unknown to the outside world, controlled by a secret curse. At the end of the song, however, the Lady breaks free from her tower and is seen by Lancelot. Though she dies, in her death is freedom. McKennitt also presents contrast between the outside world and the inside world. Each of these contrasts is represented musically in some way.

McKennitt uses five basic settings throughout the song—A, B, C, Interlude, and Ending—which each provide a framework of chords and a vocal melody upon which she elaborates. Each stanza is set by either A, B, or C. Every few stanzas, she breaks up her pattern with the Interlude. The Ending music is played only once. By selecting which musical segment to pair with various stanzas, McKennitt creates an association between setting A and the free outside world, and setting B and the isolated inside world of the Lady (setting C returns continuously, functioning like a musical refrain, and is therefore less significant). The first six stanzas exclusively use settings A and C. The poetry of these stanzas describes the outside world, from the fields of barley and rye, to the outside walls of the Lady’s tower, to the reapers in their fields listening to the Lady’s song carried on the outdoor air. Setting A has a light and free sound, matching the tone of the corresponding poetry in this first section of the song. The melody line is quite free and covers a wide range, spanning from A3 to D5. The soaring contour and large leaps in the melody line emphasize the feeling of freedom that is connected to the outside world. Furthermore, section A focuses on expanding major tonic harmony. The setting starts and ends on D major chords and uses I, IV, V, and vi harmonies. By using this section to expand on the major tonic, McKennitt brings a lighter mood to setting A. A’s affect therefore matches the feeling of freedom of the world outside the tower. By using these musical devices and attaching setting A to the atmospheric descriptions of the first six stanzas, McKennitt creates a strong association between the music of section A and the freedom of the outside world.

By contrast, the B music is connected to the inside world and the Lady’s imprisonment. The next grouping of six stanzas alternates between settings B and C. This change from A to B corresponds with the change in subject matter in the text; rather than conjuring images of a beautiful outdoor landscape, the poetry in this section talks about the Lady herself, trapped within the tower. It describes her regular activities: weaving, observing the outside world through her mirror, and wishing for a life in which she is free from the shadows. To reflect this, McKennitt removes A’s soaring vocal line, replacing it in B with a more monotonous line, which spans only from A3 to F#4. With this limited range and the lack of large melodic leaps, McKennitt is able to convey a feeling of constraint and imprisonment; when she moves to F#4, it feels as though she is pushing to reach the higher melody of A, but cannot quite make it. Furthermore, while setting A expands major tonic, setting B expands vi. The section is saturated with B minor chords, making the tonic chord of D major sound less like I and more like III/vi. McKennitt also concludes the section on two full measures of B minor harmony, further emphasizing the contrast with the A setting, which ends with an authentic cadence on D major. By emphasizing the minor harmony in this section, McKennitt applies a much more solemn feeling to the B section, connecting it with the mournful feelings of the Lady trapped in her tower. Thus, through these techniques, McKennitt sets up a clear yet subtle distinction between the outside and inside worlds in the song.

McKennitt then goes on to show her interpretation of the poem by combining settings A and B; after she has established the musical associations, McKennitt begins mixing A, B, and C together for the remainder of the song, effectively mixing the outside world with the Lady’s world. The mixing of musical settings begins when the Lady sees Sir Lancelot through her mirror (set with A, unlike all previous stanzas describing the Lady); as this moment is the beginning of the Lady’s journey to freedom, it seems appropriate to begin alternating the settings at this point. This combination of A and B represents the Lady breaking away from the constraints of her own inner world to see and join the outside world. It is interesting to note that the penultimate stanza is set with A’s music; this music is associated with freedom and the beauty of the world. Thus, although the Lady has died, McKennitt establishes here that the Lady’s death is in fact her freedom.

The differences between setting C and the Ending are also illuminating in understanding McKennitt’s reading of Tennyson’s poem. Setting C, which is used throughout the entire song as a musical refrain, is an extension of B minor, which is vi of the home key. The section contains the following progression within B minor: i - VII - v - i - VII - III - i - VII - v - i. The C section ends with a v - i, which provides some sense of closure but not a standard authentic cadence because of the minor v. As a result, there is a sense of missing resolution throughout the song. By contrast, the Ending music expands the major home key: I - IV - V - I - V6 - vi - IV - I6 - V - vi - IV - V - I. The bolded sections show two authentic cadences, strengthened by a predominant IV. It is in the Ending section that McKennitt places her strongest cadences, the last of which she also emphasizes metrically/rhythmically by holding the D in the melody for a measure and a half. She also slows the harmonic rhythm, dedicating a full bar each to predominant, dominant, and tonic. In this way, McKennitt provides a strong sense of resolution in the moment when Sir Lancelot looks upon the Lady of Shalott’s face. Though the Lady is dead, this resolution implies that she has finally achieved peace in death, emphasizing the reading that the Lady found herself freedom by taking control of her situation. Furthermore, the fact that the final cadence is in a major key, while the “cadence” of the C music is in a minor key, simply but effectively demonstrates that the Lady’s death is in fact a positive—an act of defiance and freedom.

Finally, McKennitt’s subtle manipulation of the strings’ countermelody in this song establishes the Lady’s journey toward freedom. Near the beginning of the piece, the countermelody consists mostly of quarter notes played by the cello, providing a subtle undercurrent of melancholy below the narration in the voice. However, throughout the song the countermelody becomes more active, adding freer eighth-note figures and upward motions in counterpoint with the vocal line. Additionally, the violin is increasingly incorporated, bringing a lighter colour to the song. As a result, I interpret the countermelody as representing the voice of the Lady of Shalott, who is described in the poem as singing. The simple and low cello countermelody in the beginning of the piece represents the Lady’s song in her state of captivity; it is subdued and dark. However, as the outside and inside worlds begin to mix in musical structure and in text, the countermelody begins to take on a lighter tone and a freer, more active contour. By the end of the song, the violin has become the primary voice of the countermelody. The outro of the song is identical to the intro in its musical framework, but with something new: this prominent violin countermelody with a primarily rising contour. This new, peaceful violin line is the song of the Lady in a new state of freedom from captivity now that she is dead. The use of countermelody in this song supports the hypothesis that McKennitt reads this poem as a story of a journey to freedom and the act of obtaining peace by rejecting captivity.

In all these ways explained above, the combination of music and text as illustrated by my CIN demonstrate a feminist reading of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem. While the text alone poses contrasts between inside and outside, unseen and seen, and alive and dead, these contrasts can be interpreted in various ways, many of which are patriarchal. However, with the illumination of McKennitt’s setting, the poem instead provides a compelling story about a woman who takes her fate into her own hands and finds freedom and peace by abandoning her prison and dying. In some ways, McKennitt’s feminist reading of the poem is also shaped by the artist herself, given that she is telling the story in her own voice—the voice of a female artist. In any case, McKennitt is able to write a specific meaning for this story into her setting, imbuing a high level of depth into the musical/textual relationships in “The Lady of Shalott.”

I would like to leave you with one of McKennitt’s live performances of this song. I think that it further illuminates her reading of the original poem to consider which verses she omits when shortening the song for performance. McKennitt places primary focus on the Lady leaving the tower in this performance. She includes only one verse from the first half of the original song—the first verse, which sets the scene. From there, she moves directly to the appearance of Lancelot and the moment at which the Lady decides to break free. She then sings the verses in which the Lady leaves the loom, activating the curse, and finds a boat. Finally, McKennitt skips to the verse in which the Lady is found by the people of Camelot and admired by Sir Lancelot. These verse selections place clear emphasis on the Lady’s active choice to break from her captivity and her attainment of freedom, finally finding peace in being seen. This performance truly evokes McKennitt’s empowering and feminist reading of “The Lady of Shalott.”