Annable Lee: Poe's Reflection on Love Essay

Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Allen Poe's life was bombarded with misery, financial problems, and death but he still managed to become a world-renowned writer. Although he attended the most prestigious of schools he was often looked over as a writer and poet during his career. His stories were odd and misunderstood during their time. However, now they are loved a read by millions.

The Romantic Period is characterized as an artistic and intellectually stimulating literary movement. Writers of this genre and time are considered to be those who fused the elements of romance in their writings to enhance the human experience. Edgar Allan Poe, known as the father of the modern short story, epitomizes this notion in his writings. In “Annabel Lee,” and “The Oval Portrait,” Edgar Allan Poe uses romance to illustrate the essence of death and misery and to illustrate elements in which the reader can actually feel that was is happening in the story is happening to them.

Poe is one of the early American poets of Romantic literature. In the poem Annabel Lee he uses idealism in Romance language to describe a relationship with a woman in first person. A description of the adult lovers as children most likely represent innocence or naïvety. The Romanticism comes in by comparing the couple to elements of nature. The love that the two share is free from societal norms or influence. The joy of just being together and sharing themselves with one another is so great that even angels were envious of them.

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

The second stanza embellishes the fact that Annabel Lee is a young woman by stating "She is a child." Poe also clarifies his age by saying "and I was a child", which continues with the classic fairy tale story of a love between two young children. Although they were children Poe states that they "loved with a love that was more than love" which shows that they had very deep feelings/love for each other. Love so deep that it "winged the seraphs of heaven coveted" them.

     Edgar Allan Poe, the first master of the short story, had written many short stories from mysteries to morbidity. Edgar was born on January 19,1809 in Boston, Massachussettes. Edgars Parents, David and Eliza, were both in the acting business. Poe also had a sister, who is rarely spoken of. When Edgar was young his father fleed from the family, leaving Edgar, his mother, and sister alone. At the age of two Edgar's mother died of tuberculosis. Edgar was then placed in a foster home with John and Fanny Allan.

Edgar Allen Poe is a writer of the 1800’s. He has written many classics and has a unique style. Edgar fits into a gothic romance style that was prevalent at the time of his writing. Science at the time was making leaps and bounds and often scientists were immoral and hypocritical. This is reflected in Edgar’s sonnet to science were science has been destroying all that Edgar finds wonderful in the world. Edgar has a tough life with many losses which is also reflected in his writing and the sonnet to science. To understand Edgar and his writing you have to know his history and the history of his time, that is the goal of this paper.

Poe was feeling a lot of happiness with his wife, he would write poetry about her. He was madly in love with her. One famous poem he wrote describing the love he had for her is “To Helen.” “To Helen” is a poem describing Poe’s feelings towards Virginia Clemm. He would describe her beauty and how she makes him happy. “Helen, thy beauty is

For context, Poe is known to set up several instances to which a death of a beautiful woman is either inevitably played out, or said death is being lamented upon. Often times it is the narrator, unnamed, written to mourn, or speak on the behalf, of a dead woman, to which had significant value to them. Either a lover, signifiant other, what have you, the mourner has romantic ties to the deceased, thus creating the relationship between the living and the dead.

Poe experienced many deaths of his loved ones and it is hard for him to grasp the reasoning for this so he gives explanation through his writing, “Poe loved women who died, often violently, diseased” (Smith). Virginia was thirteen years old when she married Poe and the line , “She was a child and I was a child…” shows that Annabel was also a child when the narrator loved her. In the poem, the narrator says that Annabel Lee died because the angels envied their love and so they sent a wind to kill her (Poe, “Annabel”). Poe used the wind as a symbol for the disease that killed Virginia in real life, “Readers are not given a physical, medical explanation for her death, other than that a ‘chill’ came down upon her, because in his mind mere physics would be too simple to destroy a grand love like the one he remembers” (“Annabel”). Poe uses the words, “...many and many a year ago”, showing that the event took place in the past. Virginia qualifies as a resemblance for Annabel Lee because Virginia died in the year 1847 and the poem was published in 1849.

Edgar Allan Poe in this poem “Annabel Lee” written in 1849, and first published shortly after his death in Sartain’s Union Magazine, is a story of true love and great loss where a man loves a woman so deeply and is devastated when she dies but holds on to that love even after death. No one really knows whom exactly Poe wrote this poem about, whether or not it was actually inspired by someone he truly loved due to his death right after he wrote it. There are many candidates that people believe it could have been, one of the more suspected would be Poe’s wife Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe. Annabel Lee is set in a kingdom by the sea as the poem reads. The tone of the poem can be described as very dark,

In the final stanza Poe writes that everything in this natural world reminds him of his beloved and that his heart still longs for his beloved wife. "and so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, in her sepulcher there by the sea- in her tomb by the sea". In this stanza the true feelings of Edgar Allen Poe are clearly evident. He pours his entire soul into this single stanza. He cries out to the world that his one true love is really gone; but he is only truly crying out to those who are able to view the tragedy of life and death through his eyes. Poe’s belief that fate somehow holds a grudge against him for finding love and happiness with a 13 year old girl is begging to be justified.

Another poem that shows the unfortunate heart break that Poe may have experienced, is Annabel Lee. Initially, the first stanza is jolly and almost makes the writer envious of the love the two characters’ share. It shows their love for each other and how everything in their relationship was idealistic. It reads, “And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me. She was a child and

The vision of the mind is easily portrayed through the art of literature, painting a picture with the stroke of words. The natural inspiration that influences the creation of these works is derived from the life and the experiences of the creator. For some, these tales become stories and those stories become novels, but for one man it meant so much more. The works of Edgar Allan Poe became his life; he expressed every feeling and every moment of his existence through ink and paper. Poe involved his entire life in his writing, leaving no element of the story untouched by his trademark of a past. His work became so unique and unorthodox, yet it did not lack the attention it deserved. The American critic, Curtis Hidden Page, suggested that

In many of Edgar Allan Poe’s crazy and famous stories, love is an important role in creating the plot. Most of his short stories and poems include strong love connections with women, which is what he had with his wife Virginia, a strong love connection. In his poem, “Annabel Lee”, in states, “But we loved with a love that was more than love-” (Poe) This piece of text is clearly saying that the narrator and Annabel Lee were deeply in love, just like Poe and Virginia, who also had a very strong love that couldn’t be separated. Also in “Annabel Lee”, it indicates, “But our love it was stronger by far than the love of those who are older than we-” (Poe) This is showing that the narrator and Annabel Lee loved eachother so much