43). In critiquing the Palace of Art Brunner offers common-sense substance that some previous critics had avoided. He claims that the poem demonstrates "to live in art…is to live for selfish delight" and living in selfish delight is not "Godlike" but instead it is like living in hellish mode. The truth about Tennyson is that he is rarely satisfied with "mere accurate observations of states of mind," Brunner continues (p. 43). Brunner should know, and certainly does, that Tennyson's refusal to be satisfied with mere observations is not unique to him, or to poets. Creative artists in all mediums are rarely satisfied with the status quo or with doing what is expected.

Result of the Problem / Discussion

In the Palace of Art, Tennyson is showing his "moral worldview," according to Brunner. But any close review of the poem -- even for a layperson -- brings to mind the possibility that the intense love of beauty and leisure can bring about a self-love. And too much self-love means that the poet is...

Perhaps Tennyson is saying that in the end, God will stand in judgment of art and artist, but that is what purveyors of religious beliefs have been saying for centuries, so Tennyson surely had something deeper in mind. Or just as easily it could be assumed that Tennyson was just putting forth a challenge to the reader that basically said: here it is, I did it, you digest it any way you want to or are able to.
Works Cited

Brunner, Larry. "I Sit as God'? Aestheticism and Repentance in Tennyson's 'The

Palace of Art.'" Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature, Vol. 56 (2003).

Cronin, Richard. "The Palace of Art and Tennyson's Cambridge." Oxford Journals,

XLIII (3), 195-210.

Kincaid, James R. "Tennyson's Major Poems: The Comic and Ironic Patterns." Victorian

Web. Retrieved February 16, 2010, from http://www.victorianweb.org.

Ricks, Christopher B. Tennyson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Woolford, John. "The Critique of Romantic Solipsism in Tennyson's 'The Palace of Art.'" the Review of English Studies, 57(232) (2006).