Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Nature as a Prison
In "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," Coleridge is apparently stuck in a bower, which the OED says is a dwelling or abode of some sort. The entire poem is a lament over the nature that the speaker is missing out on from being temporarily crippled, but a glowing and idealistic view of the nature outside and in his imagination. There is longing and desperation since the speaker cannot be with his friends and experience what they are seeing with them. There is also the interesting idea that nature is a freeing and wondrous place, but the lime-tree bower, which is made of natural elements, functions as a prison. Perhaps that means that man-made constructs of nature robs them of their innate beauty and freedom, making them prison-like.
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While I can certainly understand the nature as a prison in "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison". I am more inclined to see time as a prison. I feel that the speaker in the poem feels imprisoned by the passing of time. By prison, I mean a state/circumstances that he cannot control. The speaker laments that he has "lost/ Beauties and feelings" and friends that he will "never more may meet again". The speaker is a prisoner to time insofar that he cannot return to a previous moment when when he still had a capacity to feel the beauties and feelings as well as interact with his friends. Coleridge is engaging with the Romantic notion of the inevitable passing of time. The Romantics like Coleridge seem to be nostalgic for a time or rather a state of being/consciousness that they cannot return to. I believe the inability to regain a certain state of consciousness /realization is the prison the speaker is stuck in.
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