SOURCE: Brombert, Victor. “The Happy Prison: A Recurring Romantic Metaphor.” In Romanticism: Vistas, Instances, Continuities, edited by David Thornburn and Geoffrey Hartman, pp. 62-79. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973.

In the following essay, Brombert reviews the many variations on the theme of the prison in Romantic literature, including the prison as a place of fortunate solitude and as an opportunity for escaping temporal and physical restraints to spiritual development. Brombert suggests that the Romantics' emphasis on the individual prisoner allowed for a more poetic view of imprisonment than would become possible in the twentieth century, when the horrors of collective prisoners would be a familiar image.

Et le bonheur est une forte prison.

—Paul Claudel

What causes King Lear's elation, toward the end of the play, at the thought of going to prison? “Come, let's away to prison”—he seems almost impatient to be locked up. How is one...