Evaluation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Poem-annabel Lee

“Annabel Lee” is a poem about a beautiful but agonizing memory to the narrator. The speaker is commemorating his lost love who is Annabel Lee. As narrated by the speaker, he knew Annabel Lee a long time ago when she was still a girl, and they all lived in a place that was near the sea. In the poem, it is clear that the two were only children but their love was so severe that even the angels were jealous. Apparently, the speaker blames the angels for killing his love due to their jealousy. As the speaker argues, the wind came from the clouds and led to Annabel Lee’s sickness and eventually resulted in her death. Readers get conversant as the poem end that her relatives took her and buried her in a tomb. The speaker’s narration is an elaboration of the topic of love that is evident in the poem.

Love is evident in the poem given that the speaker’s narration purely revolves around issues of love. The speaker loved Annabel right from their teenage in a kingdom by the sea, but their love was apparently challenged by the death of Annabel Lee. Still, the narrator does not forget her gone love, Annabel. He instead continues to dream about her, believes that their souls are knotted. He even sleeps in her tomb at night just to remember the gone love. As narrated by the speaker of the poem, love led to the jealousy that he believes led to Annabel’s death. The speaker courageously mentions that the angels were not even half as happy as he and Annabel were. The narration implies how strong the angels’ envy was since everybody assumes that the angels are a very being in heaven. One would categorize the topic of envy in its own, but it also fall under the topic of love in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee”. It is the love that has led to the envy as narrated by the speaker in the poem.

Edgar Allan Poe might have written the poem to refer to a number of women in his life, thou there is one specific wife who apparently married him at a tender age and passed on soon after their marriage. Poe mentions the youth of the unnamed narrator in Annabel Lee poem and rejoices the childish emotions similar to the principles of the romantic era back in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Poe does not describe the setting of the poem with any specificity even as he describes the romantic atmosphere in the kingdom by the sea.

The choices of words used by Edgar Allan Poe do not directly implicate the angels and the demons for being responsible for the death of his love. The speaker tactically blames everybody for the death of Annabel by mentioning that nobody can dissever his soul from the beautiful Annabel Lee, who is already dead.

The organization of Edgar Allan Poe’s words gives the poem a peaceful musical rhythm that shows the overall musicality of the poem. The musicality, in itself, makes use of the refrain phrases such as “the beautiful Annabel” and “in the kingdom by the sea”. The repetition of some words in the poem also creates the musicality of Poe’s poem. The rhyme scheme of the poem emphasizes the words “me,” “Lee,” and “sea.” The organization of the rhyme scheme gives the poem a song like the sound even as the concepts mentioned are enforced.

Edgar Allan Poe makes use of imagery in his poem to show his unique style and subject matter. The image of the Kingdom is the first major imagery Allan Poe uses to explain the situation of their love as it was before death interrupted. The imagery is used by Poe a bunch of times but always in the phrase “a kingdom by the sea.” Just thinking about the meaning of the phrase is significant for readers in setting the tone of the poem. The imagery of the kingdom gives the whole poem the whole thing a kind of fairytale feel. The repetition of the image of the kingdom gives the readers an impression of not being so sure of where they are. For instance, Poe mentions the phrase more than four times in the poem but he does not specify on the meaning of the kingdom. The imagery used, in this case creates suspense when reading the poem and readers are left to have all kinds of imagination. Perhaps it is there to give readers an intense image of time and location very different from our own. The kingdom could also symbolize the tyranny and cruelty of the world that becomes a bad place to live for the poor speaker.

The imagery of the sea is also used again and again by Edgar Allan Poe in his poem. The imagery of the sea ties everything in the speaker’s narration together. The imagery of the sea is evident when Poe mentions the word “sea” without mentioning the other word “kingdom.” Before having to know that that it is by the kingdom, we get to imagine that it is a place full if demons mentioned by the speaker to be a part of those who are jealous of his love. We can imagine the demons slithering under water since our imagination of hell is that it is underground. The imagery of the evil things living under sea makes the sea a scary and dark phenomenon in the poem “Annabel Lee.”

The imagery of the sea is evident when the speaker also mentions his love Annabel to be in her resting place beside the sea waters. The sea pulls everything in the poem as we can imagine the water lapping against the tomb that the speaker is mentioning. The sea is apparently the last word in the poem, pushing our imagination that it rounds the whole thing out. Alliteration is created by the phrases mentioned by Poe that talks about the sea. Readers are left to believe the mysterious nature of the sea even as the poem comes to an end.

The character Annabel Lee is brought out as an imagery in the poem. She is the one the speaker narrates her story in the poem. Apparently, Annabel is the reason for the poem as her beauty, and tender age are the sweetness of the poem. The speaker brings in the memory of her death by mentioning the wind that led to her sickness. The imagery of Annabel is very strong in the poem as readers can imagine her cold body as she dies. In the sad last lines, Poe mentions the beautiful Annabel repeatedly, and her names become like an echo. Her name in the last stanza sounds as if the speak is trying to bring her back.

There is an imagination of the speaker being a kind of a guy one would wish to meet at a party and be interested in the right way. He is imagined as a person who would be charming, engaging, and maybe he would be able to tell good stories. Going, on one would wish to listen to the sad stories he would be able to tell. The speaker is imagined to be somebody in a crummy beach town with amazing towers and big steel gates to make his happiness with Annabel as greater as it seems.

There is the imagination of angels and even demons in the poem. They take the blame for killing Annabel due to their envy for the speaker. The view of the angels is not standard but the speaker has a negative attitude about everything surrounding the angels. The phrase “winged seraphs” is significant in creating a superior and legendary flavor to the poem. Readers can imagine the situation created when angels are jealous of a mere human being. The speaker also mentions that the angels had the perception that they would win by killing her love, Annabel, but the bond between their souls is still strong. We recognize the pairing of the angels and the demons under the same sea, a situation that perfectly looks like an illusion to the religious view of the world. The angels and demons are paired to be ganging up against Annabel, but there is no sense in the imagination since they ought to represent either good or evil.

In conclusion, the poem “Annabel” deals with Edgar Allan Poe’s best title, the death of a beautiful young woman. A comparison can be made between Poe’s poems and the poem about Annabel. A conclusion can be made regarding the speaker’s actions that he did not only want to expose his teenage love for Annabel but also an everlasting relationship between them.

Works Cited

1. Poe, E. A. (1849). Annabel Lee. In The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (pp. 427-429). Vintage.
2. Meyers, J. (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press.
3. Kennedy, J. G. (2015). Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Pearson.
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5. Quinn, A. H. (1997). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
6. Sova, D. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. Checkmark Books.
7. Silverman, K. (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial.
8. Krutch, J. W. (2007). Edgar Allan Poe: A Study in Genius. Simon and Schuster.
9. Poe Museum. (n.d.). Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee". Retrieved from https://www.poemuseum.org/annabel-lee
10. Peeples, S. (2008). The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe. Boydell & Brewer.