Gothic Bites 2024 5: Emily Bronte's The Prisoner

Emily Bronte, The Prisoner, 1845-6

If I have the timeline correct, this poem was published near the end of Bronte's life. It's very good, though the moral is, well, strongly-put. But then again, the gothic began with the book just telling you what the moral was on the last page, so why not? Coming as it does so close to the author's death, we might be tempted to read it as an allegory for physical life. It bears that reading, if you want to use it.

It's essentially a poetic description of a horrible prison and the woman trapped there, capped by her quiet rebuke of the punishment through her belief in the Christian God.

https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/75/poems-of-emily-bronte/5168/the-prisoner/