Lady of Shalott
• What do you know about Camelot? Make a list of the kind of people,
homes, places, activities you associate with the word Camelot? In a fairy
tale world, what do knights/men do? What do damsels/women do? Collect
these ingredients.
• Listen to the poem being read aloud. As it is being read, make a note
of what fairy tale ingredients you can spot. Underline the words that
would not be used nowadays in conversation. Tennyson probably didn’t use
these words either. Why do you think he includes them in his poem?
• Re-read each part and give it a draft chapter title.
• Part I. Look at rhyming words and alliteration and see how they relate to
the chapter title you chose for the part.
Part II. By the end of part II, write down the words that have described the
Lady of Shalott. Do you know what she looks like? Jot down what
you now know of the world of Camelot.
Part III. Underline the words to do with light and fire. What are they
describing? In the last verse, what happens and why?
Part IV. Underline the rhymes in the first verse. What is their effect?
Compare this with the first verse of the poem. Compare the
description of the Lady of Shalott with that of Lancelot.
• Study the supplementary sheet. The poem was published in 1832
and Tennyson made changes when he published it again in 1842. Mark
the differences in ll 6-9 and the last lines. Why do you think he made
these changes?
• Write the story of the poem in about 300 words. Describe the setting,
the people of Camelot, the Lady of Shalott and Lancelot.
Write about how Tennyson uses language in the poem. Use the
notes you made for the 4th activity.
Bring the story up to date.
Charge of the Light Brigade
• Preparation. List five qualities a successful soldier should have. What do you
think would be different about a soldier’s life in the 1850s?
• Read aloud the first four lines. What content, rhythm and images do you
expect from the poem that follows? Read the poem aloud.
• Tell the story of the poem in two sentences.
• Parts I and II are different in the 1854 periodical to when they were
published in a book in 1855. Then they were changed back. Same for Part
VI. Study the supplementary sheet and mark the differences and suggest
reasons Tennyson might have changed them.
Parts III and IV. Underline the verbs. Mark the repetition. Comment on their
position and effects.
• Imagine you are a reporter. Prepare the questions for a) the Captain on
the field, b) a surviving soldier, c)the General not on the field d) a family
member left at home. In groups of five, act out the interview.
Imagine you are a politician against the war. Using some of the
techniques that Tennyson uses in the poem, make/write your
parliamentary speech.
Write a letter from the surviving captain to the grieving parents of
their dead son.
Choose three phrases that sum up the poem and explain why.
Listen to the 1890 recording of Tennyson reading The Charge of the Light
Brigade of www.poetryarchive.org
Make a better one.
‘League’ is a measurement.
‘Light Brigade’ is a division of soldiers with light weapons to aid speed.
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A Little Bit Extra
• The Lady of Shalott
inspired a great many
artists in the 19th
century. See if you can
find images of the
pictures that John
Waterhouse painted.
Find out about the
Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood.
• John Ruskin summed up
what many Victorians
thought was proper
behaviour for men and
women in Sesame and
Lilies (Of Queen’s Gardens).
• Tennyson said that he
got the story of the Lady
of Shalott from a 14th
century Italian fable
called Donna di Scalotta.
What’s the difference in
sound between Shalott
and Scalotta? Why do
you think Tennyson
changed the sound?
• The Faerie Queene was a
very famous poem of the
16th century. This
happens at one point:
‘The wondrous myrrhour,
by which she in love
with him did fall.
Eftsoones there was
presented to her eyes A
comely knight, all arm’d.’
She then languishes ’Till
death make one end of
my dayes and miserie.’
Can you tell what this
says? What does
Tennyson use?
• Are there any good
reasons to go to war?
• See if you can find any
photographs by Roger
Fenton on-line Draw
death with a caption from
the poem.
• Andrew Motion has a
poem called The Dog of
the Light Brigade. Have
a look on
www.poetryarchive.org
• John Bright was a radical
politician who was
against the war and
made a speech in
parliament on 23rd
February 1855 against
the war, when he talked
of the Angel of Death
stalking the land. See if
you can find out about
him.
• There were many angry
poems about the waste
of war in the Great War of
1914-18. Read the poems
of Wilfred Owen.