Lucasta
In 1649, Richard Lovelace published his first collection of poetry, titled Lucasta. Lucasta is what you might term a recurring character in the poetry of Lovelace. The name derives from a Latin term “Lux Casta” which translates into the English as “Pure Light.” As you might expect from that translation, the inspiration for this character was a particularly important figure in the life of the poet. To say the least; the real Lucasta was Lucy Sacheverell to whom Lovelace was engaged. The story is almost too tragic in its Romantic qualities: Lucy, believing mistakenly that her great love had been killed, married another. Hence, the abundant references to Lucasta in the canon of Lovelace.
Althea and the Prison
Arguably, perhaps, “To Althea, From Prison” is today the most famous of Lovelace’s poem. If that argument is up for grabs, another is not: this poem features the most famous lines Lovelace ever wrote and, indeed, that British poet ever wrote. It is to his love Althea (who many believe is simply another pseudonym for Sacheverell) that he writes "Stone walls do not a prison make / Nor iron bars a cage." The speaker is imprisoned for his outspoken support of King Charles I during the Civil War and Althea—whether based on his love or simply an abstract vision of woman—is proof that stone walls cannot imprison the imagination.
The Grasshopper
The titular character of this poem exists on two planes: literal and metaphorical. Literally, the poem is quite obviously descriptive of the insect and its life. As the poem plays out, however, that life is transformed into a symbol of the Cavaliers; the royalists striving to survive the downward turn of fortune following the arrest, trial and execution of King Charles I during the Civil War.
Chloris
Chloris is another major female character appearing in the poetry of Lovelace. She is a nymph and the star of verse not just by Lovelace, but by myriad British poets. She is most infamous for her appearance in the poem titled “Love Made in the First Age: To Chloris” in which she seemingly appears as a character in yet another pastoral romance tinted with sexual suggestiveness. Lovelace turns things on its side, however, by ending the poem as a fantasy engaged in for the purpose of the speaker’s own masturbatory pleasures. He is alone; Chloris exists merely in the mind in order to excite him to the point of solitary sexual enjoyment.
