Who is Althea in the poem, To Althea, From Prison?

Althea is presumably the speaker’s love interest. However, we learn very little about her during the poem. We learn that she is “divine,” perhaps an allusion to her physical beauty (3). We know the speaker considers himself bound to her in a deep way. It is likely that Althea was not a real woman, but instead a poetic vehicle that Lovelace used to explore his themes of freedom and imprisonment.