Imprisonment and Freedom

The standard reading of the poem has been that it is a straightforward celebration of the freedom that one can find within oneself. It is possible, Lovelace tells us, for the outside world to trap us in physical confinement. We can be locked behind prison bars, we can be denied our physical liberty. But none of that matters very much so long as we have free spirits and free consciences.

Freedom of the body versus freedom of the soul is just one of the dichotomies that the poem uses to explore the theme of freedom and imprisonment. Two other dialectics appear: between human freedom and metaphorical freedom, and between captivity that is harmful, and captivity that is desirable.

Lovelace uses a variety of metaphors to explore what freedom is like. He compares his own freedom in his love for Althea, in the pleasure he...