Upon Edgar Allan Poe's death, several women have enthusiastically come forward to claim themselves as Poe's inspiration for his last full length poem, "Annabel Lee." Adding more fuel to the fire, several literary critics question the originality of "Annabel Lee" due to its similar structure and or theme to several other poems, suggesting that "Annabel Lee" interprets more figuratively rather than literally. Because of the mysterious inspiration behind the words of Poe's "Annabel Lee," context clues support the idea of similarity between his poem and others, mainly an earlier poem by poet Frances Sargent Osgood, as well as several claims for identification of the lost visage of Annabel Lee. In the last six months of his life Poe wrote his last full-length poem of "Annabel Lee" and left the world with a variety of unanswered questions, the majority revolving around the true identity of Annabel Lee herself. Despite the multitude of women who have claimed themselves as Annabel Lee, critic Bradford A. Booth believes leaving the identity of Annabel Lee as anonymous enhances "the emotional texture of the poem" seeing as no poet should be expected to "annotate his verses" (Booth, 1945, p.17). However, with context clues taken into consideration, the woman behind "Annabel Lee" ultimately comes down to two of the most influential women of Poe's life: Virginia Clemm Poe and Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton (Booth). Upon initial reading of "Annabel Lee," an immediate assumption
The narrator in “Annabel Lee” is going through the stages of grief that makes him unreliable on what his emotion on what's going on. The narrator states “Nor the demons down under the sea can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee”(31). Here the narrator is showing grief by saying that Annabel will always be his love, and that not even death can keep them apart. This just proves he is in the sad state that he will never forget her and they will always be together. Later the narrator states, “That the wind came out of the cloud by night/chilling and killing my Annabel Lee”(25-26). Here is where the narrator shows that he is in the angered stage of dealing with the death of Annabel. THis quote show that the narrator is unreliable because he is dealing with grief in many different ways. This is another way Poe used unreliable narrators in his
In Annabel Lee, Poe starts off with allusion to add a bit of mystery to the tale. In the very first line, Poe, who begins his story of pain and loss, says, “It was many and
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
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
He was not always convinced that simplicity was a desirable aesthetic and did not believe that you could find elegance in it. He still liked reading simple writings and appreciated all styles from the viewpoint of a writer. The death of Poe’s wife put resentment in Poe’s heart. In “Annabel Lee,” he writes of a love so deep that even “the angels not half as happy in heaven went envying her and me.” (Pollin 288) The only way he knew how to ease his pain was to put it into words. Annabel Lee became the expression of his very soul. Poe wrote that everything in the natural world reminded him of his beloved wife. The final stanza shows the true feelings of Edgar Allen Poe. He pours his entire soul into this single stanza.
Edgar Allan Poe was known for suspense in his poems giving a feature of a dark feeling and passion for love. In his most prominent poem, Annabel Lee mainly expresses the love affection the narrator has as they were younger up until the day she died, which impacted him tremendously. His life was full of ups and downs involving women whom he had fallen in love with. In the poem Annabel Lee he expresses the strong love he and his beloved Annabel Lee, although she is pronounced dead his love for her, will never die. The poem also mentions that she died due to a wind but originated from the angles envying her. This poem reflects on Edgar Allan Poe life since he has gradually been with numerous women in his lifetime. In essence, Edgar Allan Poe and the poem of Annabel Lee share a common aspect of women's presence in his life which impacts his poetry.
Although most believe that Annabel Lee resembles Virginia the most, there are others partners of Poe’s that could be his inspiration for the poem, “Poe’s earliest romance was cut short when the girl’s family refused to let them see eachother” (Peltak 13). In “Annabel Lee”, the narrator is kept away from his love, “So that her highborn kinsmen came/ And bore her away from me,/ To
In Poe’s other poem, Annabel Lee, Poe again explores the theme of death. The narrator is obsessed with how and why Annabel Lee died, and who he can blame for it. Both Annabel Lee and the narrator were children, but they “loved with a love that was more than love /…/ With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven / Coveted her and me.” [2] The narrator believed that the angels envied them so much that they sent down a wind that chilled Annabel Lee and killed her. “The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, / Went envying her and me - / Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the see) / That the wind came out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.” [3] He is in grief and haunted by her death, and thinks that it was unjust that she should have been taken from him so abruptly, when they were still only children. Poe’s poem’s setting has
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
In Annabelle Lee, he writes about the love of his friend being killed by the kingdom by the sea and explained his agony and emotion throughout the story. We know this because this was written after the death of his wife Virginia. Poe wrote, “Wind from the clouds came down chilling and killing my Anabelle Lee”. This matters because his wife died of TB and anabelle Lee represents her in the poem. Poe had a bad life but because of that he created great stories for us to enjoy for two centuries and more years to come.
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
Poe pushed all the love and anger he felt over the loss of his wife into this poem. In it, he blames the angels and God of being jealous of his love with Virginia! Another thing that makes this poem (and his other works) so great is the abundance of rhymes, onomatopoeia, assonnance, consonance, repetition, and strong rhymes. Because of this, he is nicknamed “the Jingle-Jangle man”. Sadly, not long after he wrote Annabel Lee, Poe died.
Death is greatly symbolized in this story, as well as the aftermath of it. The narrator constantly goes on about how much he loves Annabel, and how much Annabel loves him. He verbalizes that they “loved with a love that was more than love” (Poe 27). The speaker is saying their love is more than just normal love, but a love that is divine, righteous and apart from the regular love felt by typical lovers. All good things must come to an end as we know, and a wind comes by, “chilling and killing [his] Annabel Lee” (Poe 27). The speaker is clearly devastated, but it also seems as if the speaker has an obsession with how and why Annabel died. The idea of love and death seem to be linked together. Rather than facing the truth, and accepting Annabel’s death, he services her tomb as a symbol of her death instead of the facing reality of the situation. The speaker seems set on the idea that the angels of the heavens are responsible for her death and “went envying her and me” (Poe 27). He believes that the angels are so jealous of their love that they killed her. Annabel is portrayed in the story as a symbol of perfection and flawlessness. The speaker seems to be taking the concept of love a bit to literally. Annabel’s death could even serve as a death Poe has dealt with in his life, and the story represents the love and pain he felt. All in all, death is a huge concept in this story
Edgar Allan Poe was a mysterious man who often wrote tales and poems of unusual horror. On January 19, 1809, one of America’s most famous critics, poet, and short-story writer was born in Boston. After the death of his beloved wife Virginia, Poe wrote “Annabel Lee.” Ironically, it was his last poem before his death due to unknown causes. Using imagery, alliteration, rhyme and repetition, Edgar Allan Poe brought to life his fairy tale of living without his love.
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