Themes of desire and death permeate Pre-Raphaelite narrative art, as seen in this group of studies (71.18B-E) illustrating Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shallott.” In the poem, a lady is imprisoned on an island by a mysterious curse. Forbidden to look directly at the world, she can only watch life outside her window through a mirror, whose reflections she weaves into a tapestry. Her bounded existence is shattered when she glimpses Sir Lancelot, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, in her mirror. In her desire, she looks directly out the window, bringing the curse upon her. These studies, probably related to designs Hunt executed for an 1857 edition of Tennyson’s poems, exhibit the narrative clarity of literary illustration. They show the Lady seated at her loom, looking back into the mirror, and languishing in a boat, floating down river to her death.
