This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison.” Throughout this conversation poem, Coleridge introduces the bower as a symbol for the confines of the natural world, acting as a metaphorical prison. This is apparent when the speaker is unable to join his acquaintances on a nature walk. However, as the poem progresses, the bower calls…

The Romantic era (1780s - 1830s) was a movement of rebellion against the artificiality that was synonymous with Neoclassicism and industrialisation. Through idealistic tendencies, the Romantics sought a transcendent existence in response to the inauthentic state of their human experience. Through the glorification of nature, the exemplification of the power of imagination and freedom of emotional expression, composers profoundly engage with elements of the authentic human experience. Samuel…

Based upon the conversation poems “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats and “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the extent to which poetry and perception resolve isolation captivated the two Romantic poets, permeating their work. While through their respective poems both Keats and Coleridge explore the power of poetry to transport, Coleridge’s speaker experiences a journey that renews his appreciation for nature and others around him, while Keats ends his journey in…

the imagination. Samuel Taylor Coleridge explicitly expresses this query of thought in his poem “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison.” In addition to Coleridge, many other members of the Romantic movement also engaged in imagination-centered writing. Conversely, the Enlightenment movement opposed this emphasis on imagination, and instead, the Enlightenment movement valued scientific conclusions brought about using rational and empirical thinking. Therefore, Romanticism challenged the preexisting…

of travel. His purpose is to advise on the profound aspects of travel rather than the superficial landscapes found in travel guides. This idea is also explored in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1797 poem, ‘This Lime-tree Bower My…

Both of these are real parts of history, but from this moment on everything else is part of Coleridge’s imagination. He begins by talking about the sacred River Alph (not real) and how it runs through giant caverns “measureless to man” into a “sunless sea”. Then the next stanza begins to describe the gardens around the river and how they are bright and sunny and green. Our first glimpse of the world outside of these gardens is gloomy and frightening, but the world inside the gardens is lively…