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The analysis of the poem this lime-tree bower my prison by samuel taylor coleridge
The analysis of the poem this lime-tree bower my prison by samuel taylor coleridge
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In his poem This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Samuel Taylor Coleridge explicates how humans can always find beauty near themselves, even in the least futile of places. Coleridge, a man of twenty five years at the time he wrote this poem, added This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison to his collection of The Conversation Poems (Hill). In the summer of 1797, when he wrote this, he addressed the poem to a friend of his, Charles Lamb, the essayist, and while they departed, Coleridge wrote him this poem in the garden, for he had been hindered from walking by a misfortunate accident earlier in the day. This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison contains three stanzas which hold seventy eight lines.
Coleridge uses a simple conversation to start his poem, one without defamiliarization, “Well, they are all gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison!” (Coleridge). The simple introduction to the first stanza produces a perturbed tone towards his poem. He seems frustrated at the fact that he is unable to travel with his cohorts, as if he is literally locked in a prison. His short stab at the setting tells us of the bower, “a shelter (as in garden) made with tree boughs or vines twined together” (Merriam-Webster 3), consisting of lime trees. He reverses the meaning of bower as being easeful to a confinement, using “prison” (Coleridge) as his metaphor to his feeling of restraint. The hyperbole of a beautiful garden becoming a prison, the speaker wants for his audience to have pity towards him. He is feeling sorry for himself, becoming submissive to his feelings throughout the rest of the poem.
In the following lines, Coleridge sees himself as becoming blind as he gets older. He feels that because he did not go on the walk with his friends, he w...
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Despite the Romantics valuing of nature, the direct threat to the natural habitat marked by the presence of soot around steel manufacturing towns due to the Industrial Revolution catalysed increased support in Pantheism which valued the unity between man, God and nature. A Pantheist himself, Coleridge’s This Lime Tree Bower My Prison (1816) follows the persona’s wishes to accompany his colleagues upon an expedition after suffering a scald. The persona’s initial exclamation “This lime-tree bower my prison!” which metaphorically accentuates his physical constraints contrasts with his affectionate tone after a period of reflection in “This little lime-tree bower” exploring the transformative capabilities of imaginative contemplation with regards to changing perceptions of physical boundaries within nature. Furthermore, the Biblical annotations in the descriptions “Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!” and “the many steepled-tract magnificent / Of hilly fields and meadows” elevates nature to an equal status as God reflecting Pantheist values and the vivid imagery explores the impact of imagination in transcending physical constraints and enabling the individual to explore nature. Hence, through the power of imagination, one is able to transcend the physical
Coleridge and Poe are both known for writing incredible horror stories. There most famous stories are The Raven, Poe, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge. Both stories were the first of their kind and were written around the same time. These poems have many things in common and many other things not in common. The main focus here is the symbolism of the birds in the poem. The poems are in fact based around the birds and their meanings. There are three main points to compare between the symbolism of the birds, they are; the birds both being an omen, the birds giving a feeling of remorse or prosperity, and the birds creating a false hope.
In the second stanza the poet describes the tree as thin, dry and insecure. Insecurity is a human nature that has been used to describe a
Throughout life, we have all experienced the loneliness of being excluded at some point or another. In “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge shows how his experience with this resentful jealousy matured into a selfless brotherly love and the acceptance of the beneficial effects some amount of denial can have. Each of the poem’s three stanzas demonstrates a separate step in this transition, showing Coleridge’s gradual progression from envy to appreciation. The pervading theme of Nature and the fluctuating diction are used to convey these, while the colloquial tone parallels the message’s universal applications. The poem culminates to show the reader that being deprived of something in life is not always to be regretted, but rather to be welcomed as an opportunity to “smell the roses,” so to speak, and appreciate the blessings we often take for granted.
Wordsworth is raised in a simple country side and he views his childhood as a time when his relationship with nature was at its greatest; he revisits his childhood memories to relieve his feelings and encourage his imagination. Even if he grew up within nature, he didn’t really appreciate it until he became an adult. He is pantheistic; belief that nature is divine, a God. Since he has religious aspect of nature, he believes that nature is everything and that it makes a person better. His tone in the poem is reproachful and more intense. His poem purpose is to tell the readers and his loved ones that if he feels some kind of way about nature, then we should have the same feeling toward it as well. On the other side, Coleridge is raised in rural city such as London and expresses his idea that, as a child, he felt connected to nature when looking above the sky and seeing the stars. Unlike Wordsworth who felt freedom of mind, Coleridge felt locked up in the city. Since he did not have any experience with nature, he did not get the opportunity to appreciate nature until he became an adult. In Coleridge’s poem “Frost at Midnight,” readers see how the pain of alienation from nature has toughened Coleridge’s hope that his child enjoy a peaceful nature. Instead of looking at the connection between childhood and nature as
Through The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge has created a masterpiece. This epic reworks the ballad form so that it comes alive and speaks to the Romantic Age, breathing a story as strange and delightful, mystical and wonderful as the mystery of life itself. The raw power of the language, the startling speed at which it hurls you along and the arresting questions of the poem fill your spirit with wonder at the operation of nature and the awesome mystery of evil.
Toynton, Evelyn. "A DELICIOUS TORMENT: The friendship of Wordsworth and Coleridge." Harper's. 01 Jun. 2007: 88. eLibrary. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Robert Frost is considered by many to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. Frost’s work has been regarded by many as unique. Frost’s poems mainly take place in nature, and it is through nature that he uses sense appealing-vocabulary to immerse the reader into the poem. In the poem, “Hardwood Groves”, Frost uses a Hardwood Tree that is losing its leaves as a symbol of life’s vicissitudes. “Frost recognizes that before things in life are raised up, they must fall down” (Bloom 22).
“Water, water, everywhere / Nor any drop to drink” (Coleridge lines II.121-122). These often repeated lines of poetry are found in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, undoubtedly Samuel Coleridge’s most famous work. As this poem opens, the reader finds the Mariner, a former sailor, pulling aside a man to listen to a harrowing adventure he once had while at sea. Despite expressing reluctance at first, this man, simply referred to as the Wedding Guest, is soon spellbound by the Mariner and compelled to listen to his story. This woeful tale leaves him “[a] sadder and a wiser man” (VII.624), but what exactly about this story has evoked this response? Though Coleridge does not specify, the reader can speculate on such reasons by assuming that what he gleaned from his own reading is similar to what the guest has learned. Three lessons, each bringing a touch of sorrow along with increased wisdom, the Wedding Guest acquired as he listened were that it is beneficial to share personal past mistakes, that every sin has a consequence, and that all things must be shown love.
In “Kubla Khan,” Coleridge expresses his desire to use the inspirations from nature to create his own “Paradise” of poetry (54, p.1634). In the first stanza, Coleridge creates an exotic oriental garden, where the trees, gardens, hills, and the “Alph” river, together present the beauty of Mother Nature (3, p.1633). Here, the poet carefully observes his surroundings, as the nature will serve as the source of inspiration for his poetry. The “pleasure dome” (2, p.1633) in line two has two functions, one representing the creation of human beings on earth, and the other being the foundation of Coleridge’s poetic paradise. As the clash between nature and humans takes place in the second stanza with a “woman wailing for her demon-lover” (16, p.1633) the poet calls upon nature for his inspiration, represented by the powerful activity of nature. The energy of nature is released in forms of “a might fountain” (19, p.1633), “rebounding hail” (21, p.1633), or “dancing rocks” (23, p.1633) and eventually the natural disasters will accompanied by man-made destruction as “Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war” (29-30, p.1634)! Coleridge on one hand reinforces that man and nature are inseparable and one the other uses the energy of nature to represent the spontaneous spurring of emotions in the poet’s mind.
Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner can be interpreted in many different ways regarding the question of the relationship between the man and the nature. According to Geoffrey H. Hartman "Coleridge's poem traces the 'dim and perilous way' of a soul that has broken with nature and feels the burdenous guilt of selfhood" (48). Robert Penn Warren explains his perception and “the primary theme in this poem as the theme of sacramental vision, or the
“Xanadu” is a wonderful “Paradise” of fantasy, but Coleridge draws the readers back to reality with the word “I.” He immediately transitions from describing visionary objects to explaining his own poetic challenge. The “pleasure-dome” mirrors the poem and Kubla Khan mirrors Coleridge. The poem ultimately becomes a “vision in a dream,” where the reader recognizes the images that Coleridge recreates through imagination.
From author to appearance, purpose to publisher, the creation of the Lyrical Ballads was far from simple. Though the blank-verse Tintern Abbey is one of the “other poems” hidden in the back of just one edition of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ballads, the pastoral ode best represents the Wordsworthian anxiety that casts a shadow over the entire, complex publication of the Lyrical Ballads.
On the edge of a small wood, an ancient tree sat hunched over, the gnarled, old king of a once vast domain that had long ago been turned to pasture. The great, gray knees gripped the hard earth with a solidity of purpose that made it difficult to determine just where the tree began and the soil ended, so strong was the union of the ancient bark and grainy sustenance. Many years had those roots known—years when the dry sands had shriveled the outer branches under a parched sun, years when the waters had risen up, drowning those same sands in the tears of unceasing time.