This Lime Tree Bower My Prison Flashcards
Themes
Solitude
Nature
Friendship
Trying to find consolation and peace in nature
A03 Context
Coleridge wrote this autobiographical poem about a visit by his friends: Charles Lamb and the Wordsworth
It reflects dissapointment at having to sit under his neighbours’ line tree due to injury rather than going on walk w friends
Poem most factual but Coleridge uses POLITICAL LICENSE when describing Charles’ dislike of London: a city he actually loved
The evil and pain Charles experiences is true- his sister stabbed their mum to death the previous year
Sara dropped milk on his foot by mistake apparently
Not philosophical
Addressed to Charles
Thought process - speaking to self
Parenthesis (brackets)
3rd conversational poem - 1st successful one? Free of conversational emblems and allegory
A01 poetic structure
How is Coleridge feeling in the operating lines of each stanza
Stanza 1:
-loneliness, entrapped, isolated, crippled, helpless, resentful, frustrated, self pity, abandoned
‘Prison’
Stanza 2: Affection and sympathy ‘!’ Implied nature will restore Charles - optimism ‘!’ ‘Most glad’ ‘wide wide Heaven’
Stanza 3: Relief and glad Peace is solitude (w nature) - sun, dell, river —> smell and sight He needs to appreciate nature ‘Ah!’ ‘dream’
What 4 semantic fields does he use in this poem
Isolation
Places
Darkness
Light
Semantic field of isolation and why he used it
‘They are gone’
‘Prison’
‘Vacant’
As he is isolated from his friends
Semantic field of place and why he uses it
‘Ash tree’ ‘Wide landscape’ ‘Walnut tree’ ‘Meadow’ ‘Waterfall’ ‘Sea’ ‘Roaring dell’ ‘Springy Heath’
Observing and reflecting on nature- helps create places from memory
Semantic field of darkness and why he uses it
‘Unsunned’ ‘Twilight’ ‘Dark branches’ ‘Evil and pain’ ‘Dimming my eyes to blindness’ ‘Blackness’
Darkness of Charles’ life and Charles life in the city, which according to romantics like Coleridge —> dark
Semantic field of light and why he uses it
Light = revelation ‘Heaven’ ‘Sun’ ‘Deep radiance’ ‘Barn’ ‘Hue’ (colour effected by light)
Light of hope/reflection > restoration of nature, light of God/Christianity - Onamatepia
Why is this Coleridges most accessible conversation poem.
What language features do you think makes this poem easier to understand than eolian Harp and reflections
No question marks - so there is no uncertainty
Assertive express of emotions
No philosophical metaphors / debate
A05- what lessons do Coleridge reach at the end of the poem
Nature can heal
Being w our something encourages people not to take friends/nature for granted - imagine life w our then
He feels Charles - feels because of ‘calamity’- restorative power = needed more for Charles >room unified both of them
Theme: freedom
‘Prison!’
Theme: imagination
‘Now my friends emerge/ Beneath the wide wide Heaven…hilly fields’
Theme: the importance of nature
‘This little lime-tree bower’ ‘sooth’d me’