Answer and explanation:
Most scholars agree that Tennyson uses the main character in the poem "The Lady of Shalott" to represent the solitary life artists lead while they observe life and society. The Lady of Shalott herself is an artist, who spends her days weaving the images she sees reflected in a mirror hanging before her. Her curse is that she should not look outside if not through the mirror. She should never leave her tower, never explore the world. The tower is a metaphor for the solitude in which artists frequently choose to live, protected from the real world, away from society. The mirror is the way artists view the world: indirectly, observing it from a distance instead of living in it. As the poem says,
No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be;
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
She lives with little joy or fear.
Over the water, running near,
The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.
Before her hangs a mirror clear,
Reflecting tower'd Camelot.
And as the mazy web she whirls,
She sees the surly village churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls
Pass onward from Shalott.
The Lady of Shalott fears the curse the same way artists fear losing their artistic interpretation of life by getting in touch with society. They would rather stay away, forever lonely and enchanted, while conceiving their own reality.
