테니슨의「 샬롯의 아가씨」 : 빅토리아조 시각의 정치학

Abstract

The main purpose is to provide a clear view of Victorian gender ideology in relation to Victorian visual culture and highlight the gendered politics of vision wherein the female is positioned as an object of vision. This paper examines whether Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” and its pictorial interpretations of the Pre-Raphaelite artists can lead to a better understanding of Victorian visual culture and patriarchal ideology. I refer to Mulvey’s concept of ‘male gaze’ because it provides a resourceful structure in which one can analyze the positioning of women as passive objects to the male gaze. “The Lady of Shalott” establishes the Lady as an object of the ‘male gaze’ since Lancelot and the people gaze upon the deceased Lady. The poem thus appears to validate patriarchal structures by mapping the gaze/object relation in terms of an opposition between masculine and feminine. Tennyson’s poem and the paintings of the male dominated Pre-Raphaelite artists highlight a woman’s to-be-looked-at-ness. Visual politics within Victorian culture demonstrates that a mode of vision comparable to that of the ‘male gaze’ pervaded literary and artistic texts. Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelite artists ultimately reinforce the patriarchal gender ideology that permeated Victorian culture.