What Does This Lime Tree Bower My Prison Mean

Coleridges poem This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison teaches us that through an imaginative journey, you can broaden your mind and spirit. Imaginative journeys arent bounded by physical barriers and obstacles. They allow the power of imagination to achieve mental, spiritual and emotional freedom. Coleridge communicates this idea through the use of the main characters physical confinement under the bower tree. He is able to imagine his friends journey through dell, plains, hills, meadows, sea and islands. This imaginative journey allows Coleridge to rise up above his physical restrictions and 'mentally walk alongside them '. Coleridge is able to change his initial perspective from seeing the Lime Tree Bower as a symbol of confinement and is able to move on to
The poem begins on an inviting note with "well" being the first word. This contains an inviting sense of welcome and encourages the reader to feel comfortable and read on in order to join Coleridge on his journey. Coleridge uses a hyperbolic claim in the first verse "Friends, whom I may never see again", in order to communicate his initial sense of disappointment and frustration. This helps the audience identify with Coleridge and demonstrates the original negative outlook Coleridge possesses in relation to his physical confinement.

He exaggerates his confinement using Had dimmed my eyes to blindness! which relates to darkness and the world shutting him out. The first scene in Coleridges imaginative journey is the roaring dell. Visual senses enhance the description of the scene only speckled by the mid-day sun. The dell is a reflection of his current mood, unhealthy and isolated. Unsunnd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves neer tremble still draws the reader further into his journey. The yellow leaves suggests the plant is struggling to survive and possibly dying from the lack of