Gee thanks, Warburton...

Got my Paper on the thematic development of freedom back. 70%, which isn't too inspired I have to say. It's really quite appalling, considering the amount of work I put into it. I don't understand this class. I mean, Warburton goes on and on and on about how there is more than one reading of a poem, and no one reading is altogether true or false. Then I get my paper back and she says:

Rae, this is a good close reading -- well focussed on the "words on the page" The strength of your discussion however, is somewhat undermined by a slight misreading of the poem. The speaker does not so much desire freedom as claim that even in prison or "tangled" in his lover's hair he is free. It's a paradox.

[Now keep in mind here that she has given me 3 pages, and 3 pages alone to treat this poem and I did not go into the depth I could have otherwise.] Also remember that she told me there was more than one reading, and yet here she is insiting that the reading I made was wrong. How does that figure I should like to know? I also would like to say that I never said that the speaker was or wasn't free. I disegarded that entirely, because I only had 3 pages in which to write.
I suppose I shall give you the poem, since I happen to like it.


To Althea, from prison.
by: Richard Lovelace

When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hoves within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered to her eye:
The gods that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round,
With no allaying the Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free:
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, like commited linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King:
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be:
Enlargèd winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.