The words that you are citing here are ones that Tennyson is said to have written (or somehow told his son) to explain what he is trying to talk about in this poem. So you should look at how the words apply to the situation in the poem.
For most of the poem, Lady Shalott is living in the region of shadows. That is because she can only see "shadows" or reflections of the world. She is not able to fully see reality or to participate in it.
However, once she sees Lancelot, she has an uncontrollable urge to go into the region of realities. In the poem, this means that she stops looking through the mirror and looks out (and later goes out) into the real world.
I think the region of shadows literally means the mirror -- her only way of perceiving the world at first. The region of realities is the real world that she later looks at. Metaphorically, you can argue that the region of shadows is a fantasy world that is just inside one's mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment