The “Fatal Woman” Symbol in Tennyson

Abstract

Lionel Stevenson has written persuasively of Shelley's influence on Tennyson and has traced the “high-born maiden” in Tennyson as a symbol of Shelleyan origin. By following the figure through Mariana, The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Locksley Hall, and The Princess, Stevenson has found that the maiden is transformed from a weary, isolated, usually suffering figure in the early poems into a “matter-of-fact literary stock-character” in the later poems, like Elaine in the Idylls; and he has suggested that the figure conforms with Jung's archetypal image of the anima. This is very convincing, but, it seems to me, Stevenson has forgotten that host of maidens—Lilian, Madeline, Margaret, Adeline, Rosalind, Eleänore, Kate—who, unlike Mariana, are not suffering damsels at all, but strong, often cruel, haughty ladies who capture the imagination of the poet and who command his devotion but give nothing in return. These maidens, who at first glance might appear to be nothing more than insensible and flirtatious women, occur with persistency in the 1830 Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, and continue to turn up, in suggestion at least, throughout the first part of Tennyson's poetic career. Like the isolated maidens whom Stevenson has pointed out, they are significant in a study of Tennyson because of the frequency with which they occur and because of the change which they underwent after the publication of the poet's first volume. They are, I believe, a variation on the femme fatale figure and draw their inspiration from Keats, especially from La Belle Dame Sans Merci.