"Annabel Lee"

Summary: Long ago, "in a kingdom by the sea," lived Annabel Lee, who loved the narrator. Both she and the narrator were children but knew love more powerful than that of the angels, who envied them. A wind chilled and killed Annabel, but their love was too strong to be defeated by angels or demons. The narrator is reminded of Annabel Lee by everything, including the moon and the stars, and at night, he lies by her tomb by the sea. Analysis: Edgar Allan Poe wrote "Annabel Lee" in May 1849, a few months before his death, and it first appeared in The Southern Literary Messenger posthumously in November 1849. Although the poem may refer to a number of women in Poe's life, most acknowledge it to be in memory of Virginia Clemm, Poe's wife who married him at the age of thirteen and who died in 1847 before she turned twenty-five. The work returns to Poe's frequent fixation with the Romantic image of a beautiful woman who has died too suddenly in the flush of youth. As indicated more thoroughly in his short story "The Oval Portrait," Poe often associated death with the freezing and capturing of beauty, and many of his heroines reach the pinnacle of loveliness on their deathbed, as with Ligeia of the eponymous story. The poem specifically mentions the youth of the unnamed narrator and especially of Annabel Lee, and it celebrates child-like emotions in a way consistent with the ideals of the Romantic era. Many Romantics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries viewed adulthood as a corruption of the purer instincts of childhood, and they preferred nature to society because they considered it to be a better and more instinctive state. Accordingly, Poe treats the narrator's childhood love for Annabel Lee as fuller and more eternal than the love of adults. Annabel Lee is gentle and persistent in her love, and she has no complex emotions that may darken or complicate her love. The poem's setting has several Gothic elements, as the kingdom by the sea is lonely and in an undefined but mysterious location. Poe does not describe the setting with any specificity, and he weaves a hazy, romantic atmosphere around the kingdom until he ends by offering the stark and horrific image of a "sepulchre there by the sea." The location by the sea recalls the city of "The City in the Sea," which is also located by the sea and which is conceptually connected to death and decay. At the same time, the nostalgic tone and the Gothic background serve to inculcate the image of a love that outlasts all opposition, from the spiritual jealousy of the angels to the physical barrier of death. Although Annabel Lee has died, the narrator can still see her "bright eyes," an image of her soul and of the spark of life that gives a promise of a future meeting between the two lovers. As in the case of a number of Poe's male protagonists who mourn the premature death of beloved women, the love of narrator of "Annabel Lee" goes beyond simple adoration to a more bizarre attachment. Whereas Annabel Lee seems to have loved him in a straightforward, if nonsexual, manner, the protagonist has mentally deified her. He blames everyone but himself for her death, pointing at the conspiracy of angels with nature and at the show of paternalism inherent in her "highborn kinsmen" who "came and bore her away," and he remains dependent upon her memory. While the narrator of the poem "Ulalume" suffers from an unconscious need to grieve and to return to Ulalume's grave, the narrator of "Annabel Lee" chooses ironically to lie down and sleep next to a woman who is herself lying down by the sea. The name "Annabel Lee" continues the pattern of a number of Poe's names for his dead women in that it contains the lulling but melancholy "L" sound. Furthermore, "Annabel Lee"

has a peaceful, musical rhythm which reflects the overall musicality of the poem, which makes heavy use of the refrain phrases "in this kingdom by the sea" and "of the beautiful Annabel Lee," as well as of the repetition of other words. In particular, although the poem's stanzas have a somewhat irregular length and structure, the rhyme scheme continually emphasizes the three words "me," "Lee," and "sea," enforcing the linked nature of these concepts within the poem while giving the poem a song-like sound.

Annabel Lee
In A Nutshell "Annabel Lee," the last major poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, was published immediately after his mysterious death in 1849. If you know a little bit about Poe, you might not be surprised to hear that "Annabel Lee" is spooky and sad, and that it deals with one of the author's favorite subjects, the death of a beautiful young woman. It's always a little hard to separate the life of the legendary Poe from his works. In this case, there are some big similarities. Poe was also in love with a young woman, his cousin Virginia Clemm, and married her when she was just 13. She had died two years before this poem was written. Whether or not this poem is "autobiographical," we can be sure that Poe knew what he was talking about here. This intense and fascinating poem is one of Poe's most famous. Whether you're an old fan of Poe or brand new to his work, "Annabel Lee" is a really cool example of his unique style and subject matter.

Why Should I Care?

You know how sometimes you become a fan of a band because you hear their first single and love it right away? Then you download the whole album, and even though you still like that song, you get pulled in by other tracks that you start to love just as much? We think of this poem as being one of those great songs you stumble on once you're already a fan of Poe. If you ask anyone to name a poem by Poe, they'll probably say "The Raven." Sure, that poem is probably Poe's "greatest hit." We certainly love it, and could read it again and again. But there's something special about "Annabel Lee." Where the Raven is spooky, Annabel Lee shows an even darker side of Poe. It's fun to read because it's so intense. Poe is so spine-tingling-ly good that it's worth reading as much of his stuff as you can get your hands on. Once you get hooked, you just can't stop.

Annabel Lee Summary

"Annabel Lee" is about a beautiful, painful memory. The speaker of the poem is remembering his long-lost love, Annabel Lee. The speaker knew Annabel Lee many years ago, when she was a girl, and they both lived "in a kingdom by the sea." Even though they were only children, these two were really, seriously in love. So in love that even the angels in heaven noticed and were jealous. Maybe that was a bad thing, because our speaker blames the angels for killing his girlfriend. Apparently a wind came down from the clouds, which made Annabel Lee sick and then eventually killed her.

When this happened, her relatives came and took her away from the speaker, and shut her up in a tomb. Our speaker wants us to know that his love for Annabel Lee wasn't just a teenage crush. A little thing like death isn't going to separate him from Annabel Lee. Not even angels or devils could do that. He still sees her everywhere, in his dreams and in the stars. In fact he still loves her so much (here's where it gets really weird) that he goes and lies down with her in her tomb every night. Creepy.

Stanza 1 Summary
Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 1-6
It was many and In a kingdom That a maiden there By the name And this maiden she Than to love and be loved by me.

many by lived whom of lived with

year

the you may Annabel no other

ago, sea, know Lee; thought

This poem begins exactly like a fairy tale, telling us that the story we are about to hear happened "many a year ago" in a "kingdom by the sea." These little details are important, because the sea and this old kingdom will be big images in the poem. Even more important though, is Annabel Lee. She's the title character, and she's the reason the poem exists. The speaker introduces her in the third line by calling her a "maiden," which lets us know that she is young (and probably attractive), but which also keeps up the fairy-tale feel of the first few lines. (You might think of her as being a little like a Disney princess, although as you'll see, this poem is way too dark to be a Disney movie.) Finally, the speaker tells us the key fact of this poem, which is that he and Annabel Lee were in love. So much in love that it was the only thing that mattered to either of them.

Stanza 2 Summary
Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 7-12
I was In But I a this loved and child kingdom with a love my and she was a by the that was more Annabel child, sea: love-Lee;

we

than

With a love Coveted her and me.

that

the

winged

seraphs

of

heaven

In this stanza the speaker lets us know that both he and Annabel Lee were young when this happened. Not teenagers even, but kids: "I was a child and she was a child." This lets us know just how rare and special their love was, but it also tips us off that maybe there's something not quite right here. He also repeats the line: "in the kingdom by the sea." This reminds us where we are, but also creates the hypnotic, repeating effect that Poe loves. It's the same trick he uses in the next line, when he tells us that he and Annabel "loved with a love that was more than love." He wants to let us know that their love was special and intense, even though they were so young. So, the speaker uses the word love three times in the same line, which is a pretty gutsy move for a poet. This love was apparently so amazingly strong that the "seraphs" (that's just a fancy word for "angels") in heaven noticed them. In fact, these angels apparently "coveted" the two young lovers. That's a kind of tricky word, but an important one for this poem. To covet means to want something really badly, usually something that doesn't belong to you. This is a strange feeling for angels to have, since it's definitely not a holy emotion. It's also our first hint that things might not turn out so well for these two kids.

Stanza 3 Summary
Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 13-16
And this was In this A wind blew My beautiful Annabel Lee;

the kingdom out

reason by of a

that,

long the cloud,

ago, sea, chilling

Here's where things really take a turn for the worse. The speaker blames the terrible turn of events on the angels who coveted him and Annabel. The jealousy of the angels was the reason why a wind came down from a cloud and killed his girlfriend. Actually the speaker doesn't tell us right away that she dies, just that the wind was "chilling" to her. That's a great word to use because it makes us think of the way you get sick in bad weather (like how people say you "catch cold"). At the same time, it gives us a first creepy hint of Annabel's cold, chilled dead body, which is a major theme for this poem.

Lines 17-20
So And that bore her her highborn away kinsman from came me,

To shut In this kingdom by the sea.

her

up

in

sepulchre

Then, still without saying that she was dead, the speaker tells us how her "kinsman" (that just means a member of her family) came and took her away from him. Be sure to notice the word he uses to describe this kinsman. He calls him "highborn" which means aristocratic, noble. If the speaker himself were "highborn" he probably wouldn't think to mention this. Since he does, it gives us a little hint of a conflict here, maybe a little bit of a Romeo and Juliet-style family feud. Maybe even before she died there were problems in his relationship with Annabel Lee. That's just a small example of how Poe can work neat details into what seems like a simple story. Whatever is going on with the family, you can feel the speaker's pain at losing Annabel, and you can tell that he feels she is being stolen from him. He tells us how the family "bore" (that just means "carried") her away from him. Death and Annabel's family are trying to tear these two lovers apart, to "shut her up" in a "sepulchre." (That's another word for a big fancy building that you bury someone in, a tomb like you might see in an old cemetery. It's also a perfect Poe word you can always count on him to go for a spooky, fancy word when he can.)

Stanza 4 Summary
Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 21-26
The angels, not half so happy in Went envying her and Yes!--that was the reason (as all men In this kingdom by the That the wind came out of the cloud by Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

heaven, me-know, sea) night,

The speaker circles back a little bit, and directly blames the angels for killing his girlfriend. He says that he and Annabel were happier on earth than the angels were in heaven, and that made them jealous. He repeats what he said in line 13, insisting that "that was the reason" why the wind came down and killed Annabel Lee. The speaker is extra careful to point out that this isn't just his wacky theory, but in fact that everyone ("all men") who live in the kingdom know that this is a fact. We don't get any new facts in this stanza, and the story itself doesn't move forward. At the same time, maybe we learn something about the speaker's mental state. The fact that he circles back and repeats the story of Annabel's death might show us see how traumatic it was for him. He can't seem to stop thinking about that moment. Also, we think this theory about angels killing Annabel because they are jealous sounds a little off the wall. Check out line 23, when he says "Yes!--that was the reason." He sounds a little like a mad-scientist hatching a nutty idea. This will be important later, when things get even more bizarre.

Finally, notice how, even when Poe seems to be repeating himself, he's adding little changes and bits of new information. In line 17, the speaker directly mentions Annabel's death for the first time, when he talks about the wind "killing" her. Again, even when the story is simple, it's a good idea to watch every word Poe uses.

Stanza 5 Summary
Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 27-33
But our love it was Of those who Of many far And neither the Nor the demons Can ever dissever Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

stronger were angels down my

than the than wiser than in heaven under the soul from the

by

far older

love we-we-above, sea, soul

Even if death might seem to be the end of love, our speaker tells us that isn't the case for him and Annabel. Even though they were young, that didn't stop them from loving completely, and from knowing what they wanted. He goes on to say that neither the angels in heaven or the demons who live under the water can stop their love. Nothing in heaven or hell can "dissever" (that means cut or separate) his soul and Annabel's soul. The bottom line is that their love is eternal, and that nothing and no one can tear them apart.

Stanza 6 Summary
Get out the microscope, because were going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 34-37
For the moon never Of the And the stars never Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

beams, without beautiful rise, but I

bringing Annabel feel the

me bright

dreams Lee; eyes

Here's the proof that their love between the speaker and Annabel Lee isn't dead (at least in the mind of the speaker). Notice that this stanza starts with a shift from the past tense into the present tense. He was telling a story about something that happened long ago, but now he's letting us know what's happening right now. The descriptions of his current life sound a bit creepy. Whenever the moon shines, he dreams of Annabel Lee. Whenever the stars come out, he feels Annabel's eyes on him. This imagery is shared by many of Poe's poems and stories.

His main characters are often haunted by dreams and visions of women that they loved. Most of the time, those women are dead but not gone. Just notice how weird and intense these images are. He doesn't say: "When I see the stars, I think of her." He says that when the stars come out "I feel the bright eyes" of Annabel Lee. It's almost like her eyes are there, and are burning into him. We are building up to something strange towards the end of the poem.

Lines 38-41
And so, all the night-tide, I Of my darling--my darling--my In her sepulchre there In her tomb by the sounding sea.

lie life

down and by

by my the

the

side bride, sea,

Now we arrive at the reason why this could never be a sweet pop song or a Disney movie. Because their love is unbroken, because they can't be separated by death, our speaker spends his nights curled up next to Annabel's dead body. After he hits us with that super-disturbing image, he follows it up by telling us that she is his darling, his life, and his bride. They were not married in life, but now they can be united in death. The speaker seems increasingly obsessed and unbalanced as the poem goes on, and this is what it all leads to. He is half-alive and half-dead, sleeping in a tomb by the ocean. Poe leaves us with one last haunting phrase, "the sounding sea," which makes us think of the booming roar of the ocean, suddenly terrifying and cold. Sorry, there's definitely no happy ending here.

Annabel Lee Theme of Love

Love is definitely the major theme of "Annabel Lee." Even if it's a little twisted in places, this is a poem about love. At its foundation it's about a guy who loves a girl, and refuses to quit loving her. The cool thing about this theme is that the poem doesn't stick to the sunny side of love. It digs deep into the dangerous parts of these emotions, the way love can trap you, torment you, and leave you sad and lonely. Love has made this guy who he is, but it's also clear that it has ruined his life. One day he's a happy kid with a girlfriend he loves a lot, the next thing we know he's sleeping next to a corpse every night. Love's a funny thing

Annabel Lee Theme of Mortality

If love is the champion theme in "Annabel Lee," then mortality definitely comes in a close second. The speaker is obsessed with how and why Annabel died. He wants to know who he can blame for it. At the same time, the themes of death and love are tied together. The poem forces us to ask whether death is the end and has the power to kill love or whether, in fact love can triumph and continue after death. Maybe the speaker takes that idea a little more literally than he should, but that's his business. In a general way, we can all relate to the ideas of grief and loss and fate that come up when you talk about death.

Annabel Lee Theme of Family

This theme doesn't come up nearly as often as love and death, but it's a really neat and important part of "Annabel Lee." This isn't a long poem, but Poe manages to weave all kinds of different themes into it. In this case he gives us just a hint that Annabel's family doesn't think much of him, and wants to tear the young lovers apart. In a sense, family gives him a way of talking about the pressure of outside society, all the people who can't understand how pure and true his love is. This is definitely an "us against the world," Romeo and Juliet kind of poem.

Annabel Lee Theme of The Supernatural

Not only are the adults in this poem against the young lovers, it turns out that heaven and hell are lining up against them too. At least that's the speaker's theory. He never quite comes out and accuses God of taking away his girlfriend, but that seems like where he's headed. It's not exactly a religious deal, he just seems like a paranoid guy who thinks the whole universe, even the parts he can't see, is ganging up against him. When tragedy strikes, it's not uncommon for people to ask big angry questions about heaven and earth.

Annabel Lee Theme of Man and the Natural World

Even with all of these big questions on our plate, we can't forget about the importance of nature in "Annabel Lee." It's not something the speaker makes a big deal of, but nature is everywhere in this poem. The sea is the biggest example, but we also hear about the wind and the clouds and the stars and the moon. Sometimes it's a quiet, steady presence in the background, but like everything else in this poem, nature is always a little bit scary and threatening. You never quite imagine that sea being sunny and pretty, do you?

Annabel Lee: Rhyme, Form & Meter

Well show you the poems blueprints, and well listen for the music behind the words.

Rhythm and Rhyme Grab Bag

Poe uses a variety of different poetic techniques in this poem. We'll get specific about some of them, and talk about some of the ways he gets weird and fancy. But lets start by breaking it down into the basic categories. That way we can see how he sets up patterns and then messes with them. The first thing to notice is the poem is broken into different sections. These groups of lines are called stanzas. The first one ends with line 6. There are a total of six stanzas in this poem. The other important thing to notice right off the bat is that in almost every case, the poem is made up pairs of long and short lines. First you get a long line, then a short line, and so on. The lines aren't always the same length, but they tend to go long/short/long/short, etc. But then, in a few spots, Poe switches it up. Look at lines 28 and 29, for example two "shorts" in a row. You don't have to catch

every one of these tricks to enjoy the poem and understand it, but it's good to have your eye open for patterns, and then to look for the ways that they change. Another big tool is rhyme, and that's another place where Poe sets up a basic pattern and then plays with it a fair amount. The long lines sometimes rhyme, and sometimes don't, but the short lines always end in the same sound. Here's a quick example from the first stanza (we'll use letters to represent the rhymes): It In That By And Than and a kingdom a maiden there lived the name this maiden she lived to love and was many year ago, A by the sea, B whom you may know A of Annabel Lee; B with no other thought C be loved by me. B many a

See how that works? Sometimes the ends of the long lines don't rhyme with anything else in the poem (like "thought" at the end of line 5). On the other hand, the short lines always end in an ee sound. In fact, Poe only uses four words to end the short lines: "sea," "Lee," "we" and "me." Finally, let's take a look at the meter. This is where Poe gets fancy you could probably teach a whole English class on this poem. We won't drag you through every line, but it's worth a peek, because Poe was interested in how poems fit together, and the effect that meter could have on a reader. We'll show you two of the gadgets in his poetic toolbox. In the first lines, he mixes what's called an anapest (which is two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable) with what's called an iamb (which is the meter you hear most commonly in poetry, an unstressed syllable followed by a stress). Don't worry, we'll show you how it works. Let's start with that first line: It was ma/ny and ma/ny a year/ ago/,

The first three groups have three syllables each, and each one ends with a stressed beat (shown in bold). Those are the anapests. The last group (or foot) only has two syllables that's your iamb. Same trick in the next line: In a king/dom by/ the sea/

That's an anapest followed by two iambs. We'll resist the urge to dissect every line, but let's look at one more spot. The last stanza (lines 34-41) is made up almost completely of anapests. If you want to impress someone you could tell them that it alternates between anapestic tetrameter (four anapests per line) and anapestic trimeter (3 per line). The main thing to remember is the rhythm, which goes: da da DUM, da da DUM, da da DUM. Let's try it out one last time, with just the first four lines: For Of And the moon/ the stars/ never beams,/ never rise,/ but without bring/ing me dreams/ the beau/tiful Ann/abel Lee;/ I feel/ the bright eyes/

Of

the beau/tiful Ann/abel Lee;/

Voila, now you're a master of anapests. What good is that, you ask? Well, we think having a name for this meter and being able to see it helps us to understand all the careful work that Poe did to make "Annabel Lee" sound the way it does. That should make the experience of reading it more textured and alive.

Speaker Point of View

Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him? We imagine our speaker being the kind of guy you'd meet at a party and be interested in right away. He'd be charming, engaging, and maybe he'd tell some good stories. Then, as you went on, you'd start to realize that something wasn't quite right. Maybe he'd keep coming back to one particular subject. Maybe he'd rant about something bad that happened to him. Maybe there would just be a little gleam in his eye that made you a bit uncomfortable. You'd try to slip away, but you'd find yourself fascinated by him, and unable to leave. He would draw you in until you felt sorry for him, until you almost felt like you had lived his sad life. The speaker of this poem, if he was talking to you, would have an edge in his voice that would make him impossible to ignore.

Annabel Lee Setting

Where It All Goes Down

The Creepiest Kingdom Ever

We get a real fantasy movie vibe from this poem. That kingdom by the sea can't just be a crummy beach town. It has to have a huge castle with amazing towers and big steel gates. Think The Lord of the Rings orThe Chronicles of Narnia, when they have the first big dramatic shot of a castle. The setting of this poem is almost hyper-real, all jagged edges and steep cliffs and pounding waves. The ocean is black and cold; the sky is filled with big boiling grey clouds. Annabel's tomb would have to be made of black marble, huge and cold, and perched right above the ocean, almost like it was about to fall in. And you know how the speaker talks about demons under the sea in line 31? We don't think that's just a metaphor. We think he can really see them. When he peeks his head over that cliff into the ocean, he can see demons writhing and slithering down below. When he looks up in the sky he can see angels flying above, big scary angels with flaming swords. Definitely not happy, harp-strumming angels. This poem isn't about a happy dream. It's about a living nightmare, where death is everywhere and the world is dark and scary. Sorry about that, we wish it was happier, but we think Poe's world in "Annabel Lee" isn't a place where you'd want to spend much time.

Whats Up With the Title?

Annabel Lee is the star of the poem, and she's the only thing in the world that matters to the speaker. So it's not too surprising that the poem is named after her. On top of that, the title introduces us to thesound of her name, which is important for Poe. He repeats her name seven times, and more than half the lines in this poem end with that eesound. It's almost like the name is shouted out in the title, and then echoes through the rest of the poem. She is the center of this poem, but we never learn much about her except that she was young, and her name was Annabel Lee. In a way, the sound of her name becomes her, takes her place. It's a poem about a girl, but also about the memory of her, the traces of her. She hasn't left much behind for him but the sound of a name he keeps repeating. The title, always the first thing we read, is a great place for Poe to tip us off to this theme.