Answer:
The answer is letter A. the solitary life of an artist.
Explanation:
It is the understanding of most scholars that Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott" is about the conflict between life and art. Artists are solitary beings in the sense that they spend their days in their own minds, which is represented by the tower where the lady lives. They are often torn by the need to engage into a more social life, leaving the safety of their ideas. It's as if artists fear that, by paying close attention to the real world and its matters (politics, history, money etc.), they will lose touch with art, with magic. That much is represented by the curse in the poem. Thus, very much like the Lady of Shallot, artists stay away from life while at the same time concocting representations of life itself through their work. They may not live it the way other people do, but they paint it, sing of it, write about it - forever lonely and enchanted.
