Edgar Allen Poe is a talented and well-known American author. He has written many different short stories and poems, which are now considered to be classics. The theme of his poem “Annabel Lee” is ‘You need to let go of your grief and move on or it will consume you’. Three different literary elements that help to emphasize the theme are the imagery, mood, and repetition found in the poem. Imagery found in the poem help to emphasize the theme. In the beginning of the poem Poe describes the setting as “In a kingdom by the sea”. The reader imagines a calm and happy place. “But we loved with a love that was more than love”. The description of their romance also helps to create a happy image in the reader’s mind. The imagery of the setting helps to emphasize a calm and happy mood. However, later in the poem imagery helps to make a darker and creepier mood. For example, “cold winds”, “In her tomb by the sounding sea”, and “shut her up in …show more content…
In the first stanza of the poem Poe writes, “In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom they may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me”. The mood is uncharacteristically optimistic and happy for Poe. But, by the fourth stanza we see the mood change from happy to quite creepy. “That the wind came out a cloud at night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee”. The mood stays the same for a couple more stanzas, but, at the final stanza, it goes from creepy to downright dark and disturbing. “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling-my darling- my life and my bride In her sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea”. The mood goes from happy to dark, similarly to what happens to the narrator. The mood symbolizes the narrator’s grief over Annabel Lee and what it does to him because he can’t move on. He lets it take over his life and he slowly goes
Poe takes a quite different approach in expressing the same theme, the loss of a loved one, in Annabel Lee. While the tone is dark and somber in The Raven, the tone in Annabel Lee is loving at first, then as it
Even after, she still cannot part from the loss of her father and sets a picture of him on her night stand to watch over her. The Narrator in “Annabel Lee”’s loneliness has caused him to be paranoid and in a never ending cycle of grief. His lover has died “many, and many a year ago” (Poe, p 765), but he still spends his nights lying beside her dead body. He doesn’t seem to have any other loved ones without Annabel Lee, so one can assume even before he was a very lonely
In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.
Poetic Qualities as Signs of Loss in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee”Edgar Allan Poe's classic poem, "Annabel Lee," is a very deep and emotional poem,clearly trying to convey a lot of universal emotion to his reader. During his lifetime, Poe had lost his young wife, his mother, and his stepmother, so in other words, many of the women that Poe had so loved in his life had died, and this was something that had deeply troubled Poe, leading him to an eventual state of depression. In the poem "Annabel Lee," many of these feelings of love and loss that Poe felt towards his wife and other women is all transmitted to the reader.Through the use of various forms of poetic qualities, tone, and imagery, Poe speaks about a universal theme of love and loss, inspired by his own experiences with the women he loved.Throughout the poem Annabel Lee, Poe seems to be utilizing a very dark, menacing,even vengeful sort of tone, and he does this through various means. One of the way he does this is by his word choice. He uses harsh words and phrases like "killing (line 26)," "shut her up,”(line 19) and "dissever my soul" (line 32) to accomplish this. Even though Poe is speaking about his love, he is nevertheless speaking in a very menacing sort of way. The hurt that he feels from her loss has impacted him deeply, he is all consumed by the darkness of her untimely death, as the reader also learns that she was young when she was taken away. This loss has driven the speaker to the point of anger and
Poe manifests all of the criteria for "elevating the soul" in the poem "Annabel Lee". In this poem, the speaker begins by expressing the love between him and Annabel Lee in such a manner that you think it is nothing but an innocent love poem. As the poem progresses, its tone changes from that of love to obsession.
In “ Annabel Lee,” archetypes are used to emphasize the theme of love and death. She was loved so much by the narrator that, “she lived with no other thought than to be loved by me.” Their love was so strong. The attraction made the narrator insane from the loss of her presence. It was enough to be the reason, “ a wind blew out chilling my Annabel Lee.” It caused her to die. Leaving a broken heart and a mourning soul. Not only does
A great poem shocks us into another order of perception. It points beyond language to something still more essential. It ushers us into an experience so moving and true that we feel at ease. In bad or indifferent poetry, words are all there is. Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” is a great poem, not because it is popular or it is classic, but because of its underlining message. “Annabel Lee” is a poem of death, love, and beauty. It captures the narrator’s interpretation of these three ideas through his feelings and thoughts for one woman. The narrator, Edgar Allan Poe, becomes infatuated at a young age with the character in the poem, Annabel Lee. Even after she passes away, his love for her only increases and only becomes
Akin to the barrenness that Poe was obviously feeling at the time he wrote this poem, most detail is stripped away except for the most basic imagery of the sea, the shore and the heavens.
An exceptional poem can move the reader to a new consciousness. It becomes more than words pieced together to make a rhyme, and evokes true emotion that is palpable. One of the most influential authors that contributed to this experience was Edgar Allan Poe. His work is almost immediately recognizable due to his common motif that is both melancholy and mysterious. Much of his writing concerns love and loss, such as in his poem “Annabel Lee.” The essence of this work is endless love and the death of a beautiful young girl. It is thought by many that most of his literature mirrors his actual life, which was riddled with heartbreak and sorrow. It is evident from the mood and setting of his writing that he dealt with a lot of
The poem, “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, has a dark and eerie tone. This poem is so sullen and creepy because the narrator’s wife, Annabel Lee, was killed by the heinous, chilling winds that were dispatched by the angels. Her husband, who became a widower, wrote the poem beside Annabel Lee, who was dead in her tomb. This has a very dark and glum toon, which causes the reader to jump into a somber mood. The text states in a dreadful and shocking tone “that the wind came out of the cloud by night/chilling and killing my Annabel Lee” (Poe 25-26). The poem “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)” by E E Cummings, is a very powerful poem about love. It is mainly about a man who knows that his life is complete because he has his love by his side. Cummings uses passionate and warm hearted words to make the reader incorporate and feel an emotional mood towards the poem. In a spiritual and loving tone it states that “i want, no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)” (Cummings 6-7). Each one of the poems are unique in their own way, but both have completely divergent feelings and tones to them. “Annabel Lee” has a dark, gloomy, and cold tone that makes the reader feel a sense of loneliness. Poe sets a sorrowful and mournful
In “Annabel Lee”, Edgar Allan Poe, like in many of his stories, describes the death of a beautiful woman. He describes for the reader that the love of him and Annabel Lee was so strong, that the angels in Heaven envied them and this was the cause of her death. It is disputed that the woman named Annabel Lee in this poem, is in real life, Edgar Allen Poe’s wife, Virginia. “Annabel Lee” is a perfect example of how Edgar Allen Poe used romance to illustrate the essence of death. He describes how the love that he had for her was so strong and it ended up causing envy in the angels and they in return took her away from him. The poem illustrates the misery that can be
Furthermore, Poe shows that he longs for the reader to be with Annabel, because she was adored and loved by all. This diction gives the poem a romantic feel, which is outside of its gloomy morbid tone, showing his true love for his deceased. This shows that Poe wants the reader to feel a different side of the poem, most of the tone of the poem is dark and extremely morbid, but by saying this he adds a bit of relief to the readers, showing them that it’s not all bad. The most dramatic illustration of this poem is when Poe uses the lines in the poem that suggest imagery such as “For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee” “and the starts never rise, but I feel the bright eyes” This imagery shows the reader what Annabel Lee was like, it glamorizes her showing the reader that she was an incredibly amazing and beautiful person. The diction in Annabel Lee cannot be any more applauding; by doing this he sets the tone for the whole poem, which makes the poem so wonderful in the first place.
The way that Poe wrote the literary prose is very rhythmic much like the movement of waves in the ocean. This imagery ebbs and flows as one reads the lines. The poem also has a dreamlike quality to appearing surreal or supernatural. In the world of Poe and Annabel the angels can determine the fate of humans. Annabel Lee dies from a chilling wind from heaven. The news of her death flows into the life of Poe and then just as softly ebbs the life out of him. However as Poe describes Annabel Lee as living in the stars of heaven, he realizes that death cannot separate them. The love they share is stronger than life itself. The eternity of heaven, earth, wind, ocean, and stars is somehow breached by an eternal love this husband and wife shared. Within that love they can again be together. In the closing, Poe goes to the sepulcher where Annabel Lee lays and joins her
The poem “The Raven” was published in 1845, after his mother had died and around the time his wife was dying. The poem “Annabel Lee” was published in 1849, after Poe’s wife had already passed on. It believed that “The Raven” is about Poe’s late mother ( or late foster mom ) or Poe’s dying wife. It is also believed that “Annabel Lee” is about Poe’s late wife Virginia. In “Annabel Lee” in lines 38/39 the speaker says “And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side of my darling - my darling - my life and bride”, which leads readers to believe that Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” is about his deceased wife virginia. In “The Raven” in lines 93/96 it says “Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore”, in these lines the speaker id asking him he will be reunited with a departed loved one. This leads me to think that Poe wrote this poem for either his mother or his wife. The themes of these poems tie together with the reasons they were written. The theme of “Annabel Lee” is love and loss, this is because the speaker is talking about how he has lost his beloved wife. In line 9 of “Annabel Lee” it says “But we loved with a love that was more than love” and in lines 25/26 it says “The the wind came out of the cloud by night chilling and killing my Annabel Lee”, in these lines the speaker is talking about how he loved Annabel Lee and that she had been struck with a chill and it killed her. “The Raven” has two themes. The themes of “The Raven” are love and loss as well as sanity versus madness. In “The Raven” the speaker has lost a loved one by the name of Lenore, this contributes to the love and loss theme. Also in “The Raven” the speaker repeatedly asks a raven questions and the raven
Poe’s use of intense imagery conveys a heartfelt hunger for his main character. There is also equal desolation from her death. After the death of “Annabel” the narrator has a strong opinion that it wasn’t a natural death. He is clearly distraught when he exclaims, “A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee” (Poe 609). Her death could necessarily have been from a virus or pneumonia however, the narrator blames the angels for her demise. Poe uses visual imagery to divert the audience’s attention away from the fact that her death could have been from natural causes. He wants us to feel the pain and shock of losing a loved one. “This pivotal line describes the death of Annabel