To —. With the Following Poem [The Palace of Art]

Published 1832. It is addressed to R. C. Trench (Tennyson and His Friends,p. 79), a remark by whom prompted The Palace of Art (seep. 50). It proclaims the view of poetry (morally opposed to aestheticism) which was strongly held by the Cambridge ‘Apostles’. On Trench, see P. Allen, The Cambridge Apostles (1978), pp. 93–4, 126, in particular. On the affinities with Goethe, see Ian Kennedy, PQ Ivii (1978) 91.