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Word Gems
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Edgar Allan Poe
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Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you 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.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
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 sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
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.
from https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/edgar-allan-poe/annabel-lee
"Annabel Lee" is the last poem composed by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost figures of American literature. It was written in 1849 and published not long after the author's death in the same year. It features a subject that appears frequently in Poe's writing: the death of a young, beautiful woman. The poem is narrated by Annabel Lee's lover, who forcefully rails against the people—and supernatural beings—who tried to get in the way of their love. Ultimately, the speaker claims that his bond with Annabel Lee was so strong that, even after her death, they are still together.
Many years ago, there was a kingdom by the sea. In this kingdom lived a young woman called Annabel Lee, whom the speaker suggests the reader might know. According to the narrator, Annabel Lee's only ever thought about the love between them.
They were both children, but their love went well beyond what love can normally be. In fact, this love was so special that the angels of heaven were jealous and desirous of it.
For that reason, back then, Annabel Lee was killed by wind from a cloud. She was then taken away by people the narrator calls "highborn kinsmen," who could be the angels or Annabel Lee's own family members. They enclosed her in a tomb, still within the same kingdom.
Retrospectively, the speaker believes that the angels, unhappy in heaven and envious of the love between him and Annabel Lee, caused the wind that killed her.
Their love, says the speaker, was more powerful than the love between people older and wiser than them. Furthermore, no angel from heaven or demon under the sea could ever separate his soul from Annabel Lee's.
Every time the moon shines, it brings the speaker dreams of his beloved. When the stars rise, he can sense her sparkling eyes. Every night the speaker lies down alongside Annabel Lee—whom he calls his "life" and "bride"—in her tomb, with the sound of the sea coming from nearby.
“Annabel Lee” tells the story of young love cut short by tragedy. As the speaker (often assumed to be based on Poe himself, whose young wife died shortly before he wrote this poem) discusses his relationship with the now-deceased Annabel Lee, he presents the love between them as pure, eternal, and all-conquering. The love between the speaker and Annabel Lee may have been short-lived, but it remains too powerful to be defeated, even by death. Through describing this intensely idealized love, the poem argues that love is the strongest force on earth.
The speaker establishes from the beginning that there was something magic about his and Annabel Lee's love. The opening stanza sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale, giving the poem a supernatural atmosphere. The first stanza places the story "many and a year ago"—like the classic "once upon a time"—which helps to underline the way in which this love is in part defined by its ability to survive eternally. As the poem progresses, the speaker builds his case for the rare power of this love, insisting on his conviction that his soul will never be separated from Annabel Lee's (line 32), which again highlights the idea of eternal survival against the odds.
In fact, this love was and is so powerful (according to the speaker) that it goes beyond the normal limits of how other people experience love. Lines 5 and 6 portray Annabel Lee's entire existence as built around her love for the speaker. Line 9 develops this further idea, paradoxically suggesting that their love was "more" than love itself. Indeed, not only does their love go beyond other loves, it also transcends the earthly realm. Their love is so pure that even angels envy the young lovers (lines 21-22). Angels are normally morally good creatures, but here it's as if seeing something even more good than themselves (the lovers' extraordinary love) makes them jealous and even murderous. This remarkable change shows that this love can alter even the powerful rules of the spiritual realm, and what's more, it conquers the vengeful angels themselves in the end--they kill Annabel Lee, but the speaker still claims that he and Annabel Lee will be linked forever (line 32). Throughout, the speaker contends that love will ultimately triumph over everything else.
Though all this discussion of love's power seems beautiful and romantic, it also hints at a darker possibility: at times, the speaker's love seems to have overwhelmed even his own sanity. The speaker has clearly been traumatized by the loss of Annabel Lee, and his ceaseless insistence on the supernatural power of their love can be read as a window into a troubled or even obsessive mind. For example, in the final stanza the speaker says that he is unable to experience the moon, stars, or sea without being consumed by thoughts of Annabel Lee. Furthermore, he claims to lie down beside Annabel Lee's body every night--an unsettling image, if taken literally. On the one hand, these lines are a moving demonstration of the speaker's undying love, but on the other, they are a troubling picture of how love's power can actually destroy those who experience it. This suggestion of insanity also casts some doubt on the speaker's romantic claims; if his memories are clouded by some kind of madness, then was his love really as wonderful as he says?
Part of poem’s power, then, lies in its resistance to a single clear interpretation. It is an expression of the beauty of love and an examination of the intense (and perhaps troubling) way it can affect people.
“Annabel Lee” takes up a common subject in Edgar Allan Poe’s writing: the death of a beautiful young woman. It portrays this as the most tragic death of all—robbing the world of youth, beauty and innocence. The tragedy of this loss is mostly explored through the portrayal of the narrator's grief, which colors every line of the poem. The poem shows the way grief attaches itself to a person and refuses to let go, an experience intensified here by the added tragedy of a life cut short. The poem doesn’t make a clear, neat argument about death and grief—and in a way, that’s the point. Grief is disorientating and overpowering, and the poem embodies this from start to finish.
The speaker is completely defined by the death of his lover. They were children when they met and the speaker seems to have remained locked in this childhood love throughout his life. That is, as the poem unfolds line after line, it becomes clear that there's only one thought in the speaker's mind: "the beautiful Annabel Lee." This grief defines not just the speaker's past, but his present and future as well. To him, the entire world and all of nature are nothing more than reminders of Annabel Lee: the chilly atmosphere of moonbeams, starlight and the sea are all eternally linked to his lover. As he tells the reader, his soul will never "dissever" from Annabel Lee's; that is, he will be connected to her forever, which means that grief will rule his world forever. The state of grief is presented as being just as unchangeable as the state of death. That's why every other line either ends in "Annabel Lee" or rhymes with her name—the speaker's mind keeps circling back to the trauma of losing someone so young and beautiful. At play here, too, is the Romantic idea of innocence. Annabel Lee's youth and beauty make her pure, and her death both compounds the poem's sense of tragedy and preserves her in this eternal youthful beauty.
Another key element of the poem is the way in which the narrator's grief seems to have no possible outlet. Whereas some grief-stricken people might turn to family or spirituality for solace, the narrator can do no such thing. Any possible comfort from religion has been destroyed by the angels' role in Annabel Lee's death—he believes that their jealousy and malice killed her. Likewise, if "highborn kinsmen" (line 17) is taken to refer to Annabel Lee's family, the narrator has no positive connection with them either; he mentions only that they took her away. He also disparages the "older" and "wiser" people in his world (lines 28-29), saying that they wouldn't understand the perfect young love he shared with Annabel Lee. In other words, he is entirely isolated—suggesting perhaps that the pain of losing a loved one can be made even worse by feeling alone in that pain.
The poem ultimately seems to suffocate under the pressure of this endless grief, with no suggestion of a way out. In fact, the poem’s conclusion shows the speaker’s environment merging with his grief. The moon and the stars exist only to bring back memories of Annabel Lee. The sea, too, is defined by his grief—its constant “sounding” underscoring the eternal silence of his deceased lover. In the end, the speaker says that he joins Annabel Lee in her tomb, and though it's unclear whether he does so literally or only figuratively (by feeling as if he is lying there beside her), it's nonetheless certain that the speaker is emotionally imprisoned by his grief.
Lines 1-4
The poem begins in a way that is deliberately close to the typical beginning of a fairy tale—an allusion to the genre, in a way. The first line is like an echo of "once upon a time," and the second line brings to mind the figure of a lone maiden locked up in a faraway kingdom--another classic feature of fairy tales. This beginning lets the reader know that what follows is an idealized account and involves a degree of fantasy. But the opening lines also lure the reader into a false sense of security—they put a sweet, simple face on what will later turn out to be a psychologically troubling poem. That is, the fairy tale beginning sets up the expectation of a fairy tale ending that fails to arrive—there is no "happily ever after" here, and the contrast between this opening and the lines to come highlights the sense of ongoing grief that colors the entire poem.
The first four lines also establish an objective and omniscient narrative tone. Of course, this is another a false promise—lines 5 and onward show that the speaker is very much invested in what he's telling the reader, and that he was directly involved in the life of Annabel Lee.
Additionally, the first four lines set up the prominent /e/ vowel sound that continues throughout the poem. It is found here in "sea" and "Annabel Lee," and it has a relentless quality that here starts to hint at the obsessive state of the speaker's mind. Just as the poem keeps returning to this sound, the speaker's thoughts keep returning to his long-gone beloved. It's a hypnotic effect that draws the reader deeper into the poem's psychology and the speaker's agonizing experience of grief.
Line 3 also presents an interesting challenge to the reader. The speaker suggests that the reader might know, or know of, Annabel Lee. This could imply that there is a notoriety about her life and/or death. Or, perhaps, it is the speaker's hint that this is a universal story, one that—like a fairy tale—is common to people throughout the world.
Nature has multiple symbolic resonances throughout the poem. The whole thing takes place in a "kingdom by the sea," and thus is literally set on the edge of the natural world—beyond this kingdom is a vast and mysterious ocean, beneath which are "demons." Annabel Lee is notably "chilled" and ultimately "killed" by a cold wind that "came out of the cloud by night," suggesting nature as a powerful and malevolent force.
At the same time, however, the speaker's memories of his beloved are spurred by moonbeams and shining stars, and he thinks of her during "the night-tide." These elements of the natural world are thus associated with the innocence and purity of Annabel Lee herself, and are comforting rather than hostile.
Together, then, nature can be seen as a dualistic force—one that is at times frightening and hostile to human existence, yet which also can be a realm that offers comfort and peace—perhaps even a realm in which the love between these two figures may live on.
Alliteration
Alliteration is used here and there throughout "Annabel Lee." In general, it adds to the hypnotic, dream-like feel of the poem, helping to blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
In the first stanza, there are a number of words that begin with an /l/ sound. Across lines 2-6, the /l/ joins "lived," "Lee," "love" and "loved" together. This comes when the speaker is telling the reader that Annabel Lee had "no other thought" apart from loving and being loved by him. The use of alliteration links these words together, tying a conceptual knot around the idea of living, the character of Annabel Lee, and love. In other words, the alliteration reflects the speaker's perspective on Annabel Lee and how only love made her life meaningful.
In the fourth stanza, alliteration occurs in the first line (line 21). Here, the /h/ sound is repeated in "half so happy in Heaven." These words have an exasperated and airy kind of sound, as though the angels are huffing with anger and envy.
In the following stanza, /d/ sounds link "demons" with "down" and "dissever." This creates a sense of the depths under these words, where the speaker imagines the demons live.
Edgar Allan Poe referred to this poem as a ballad, though it does not fit any of the strict definitions of that mode. It does feel ballad-like, though. That's because it generally unfolds through a pattern that alternates between longer lines and shorter lines, which is a typical feature of ballads. Just as importantly, it's also the content itself that gives this poem a ballad-like feel. Ballads are predominantly narrative, in that they tell a story. "Annabel Lee" tells the story of her death, and how that has come to affect the speaker's life. Furthermore, traditional ballads were often about doomed love affairs and/or murders—exactly what the reader sees in "Annabel Lee."
The stanzas range between six and eight lines, and each one develops the story further. The first establishes the setting; the second introduces the envious angels; the third recounts how they killed Annabel Lee and describes her entombment; the fourth confirms the angels' responsibility in Annabel Lee's death; the fifth establishes the speaker's claim that their love is unbreakable; and the sixth concludes the poem, with the speaker lying down next to Annabel Lee in her tomb.
The poem's refusal to settle into a regular ballad structure, which would usually consist of quatrains, is part of the poem's atmosphere. Just as the meter hints at regularity but never quite gets there, the form approximates a regular structure but falls deliberately short; the stanzas don't follow a predictable structure or number of lines. This has an unnerving effect on the reader's experience of the poem, highlighting both the intensity of the speaker's grief and the possibility that his perception of reality is fractured. The incompletion of the poem's form also embodies the way in which Annabel Lee's life was cut short in youth.
Edgar Allan Poe plays with the reader's expectations in "Annabel Lee" through variation of the poem's meter. A high percentage of the poem's metrical feet employ anapests, which have a dramatic and propulsive sound—but if overdone can start to sound comic. Accordingly, Poe mixes these anapests up with iambs. For example:
It was man- | y and man- |y a year | ago
This is a line of tetrameter that goes anapest-anapest-anapest-iamb. It accelerates dramatically through the anapest, but is then disrupted by the final iamb. To see the difference in effect, here is a line with largely the same informative content that sticks to the anapestic foot:
It was man-|-y and man-|-y a year | in the past
If "Annabel Lee" was like the above line throughout, the rhythm would take on a comedic regularity that wouldn't fit with the subject matter. Instead, the frequent switches between iambs and anapests create tension and represent the speaker's inability to move beyond the death of Annabel Lee. There is also something quite hypnotic about this push and pull between iambs and anapests, as though the lines are like the waves coming in and out of the "sounding" sea nearby, where Annabel Lee is entombed.
Even though the feet still vary, the last two stanzas have a quicker flow than what has come before. Arguably, this is because the poem is reaching its climax, as the speaker loses himself in thoughts about his love with Annabel Lee—and their eternal future together. Not all of the lines in these stanzas start with two unstressed syllables, but the three-syllable sound of the anapest is prominent throughout these stanzas. This line, for example, is purely anapestic:
But our love | it was strong- |er by far | than the love
Whereas this line gets rid of one of the first syllables (technically called catalexis):
Can ev- | er dissev- |er my soul | from the soul
So even if the first foot isn't an anapest, the fact that the variation happens at the start of the line makes it very easy for the speed of the three-syllabled anapests to keep their pace. As the speaker delves deeper into his thoughts—and becomes overcome with emotion—the meter makes it sound as if he is speeding away from the reader, perhaps suggesting that the reader is as incapable of understanding the nature of this love as all the other people mentioned earlier.
"Annabel Lee" is an unusual poem in that it has a combination of regular and irregular rhyme schemes. The regularity comes from the shorter lines: line 2, 4, 6, 8 and so on. All of these rhyme, and though there are numerous lines involved, the words that provide the rhymes are very limited: "sea," "Lee," "me" and "we." Other lines sometimes rhyme, but with no overall pattern. The first two stanzas demonstrate this tension between pattern and non-pattern:
ABABCB / DBEBFB
The repeated rhymes have a powerful effect. Using such a small set of words, they reflect the speaker's troubled and fixated mind—every other line (at least) returns him to thoughts of the sea, Annabel Lee, himself, or them as a couple. No other rhyme scheme is allowed to establish itself, because his mind is too singularly fixed on his relationship with Annabel Lee. These rhymes, of course, are based on the name of his lover, again reinforcing the idea that he can never let her go—that their souls are, in his view at least, forever bound together. These rhymes are part of the hypnotic effect that the poem builds over the course of its forty-one lines.
The poem makes use of some internal rhymes, too. "Chilling" and "killing" in line 26 link the wind from the cloud with the effect it had on Annabel Lee. Lines 34, 36 and 38 rhyme "beams/dreams ... rise/eyes ... tide/side," respectively. This internal rhyme helps build the poem to its climax, and also demonstrates the way in which the speaker senses Annabel Lee in everything—whether it's the moon, the stars, or the sea.
“Annabel Lee” Speaker
The speaker in "Annabel Lee" is often taken to by Edgar Allan Poe himself, but there's no definitive evidence in the poem to confirm this. However, his wife, Virginia, had died not long before its composition, and she was considerably younger than him. So there are parallels, at least, if not certainty.
What is beyond doubt is that the speaker is someone who is grieving. His entire being seems to have been defined by his relationship with Annabel Lee, even though it was "many and many a year ago." He has an idealistic view of their love, believing that it was "more than love," and believes that their souls are eternally linked. On the other hand, he is certainly grieving too. The way the poem keeps circling back to Annabel Lee's name shows that she is a very real absence from his life, even if he does sleep next to her body every night. But, of course, it's not clear how reliable the narrator's account actually is. Poe was fond of using unreliable narrators, and there is definitely a sense that the poem is narrated by someone whose mind is troubled. Accordingly, it's hard to take the poem at face value as the objective narrative of what happened to Annabel Lee—it is colored by the speaker's intense emotions regarding her life and death.
“Annabel Lee” Setting
"Annabel Lee" has a fantastical, fairy tale-like setting. Like a fairy tale, this story happened "many and many a year ago"—"once upon a time," in other words. The faraway kingdom and the young maiden under mortal threat are also common in fairy tale stories. But this suggestion of fantasy creates a false sense of security, because the poem quickly becomes about the narrator's own thoughts about Annabel Lee and the love he shared with her. Furthermore, there's no neat, happy ending—the poem leaves the speaker in his grief, with no possibility of escape.
On the surface, then, the poem is set in this mysterious coastal kingdom. It's a bleak, unforgiving place, where the clouds blow chilly and there is little other visual detail apart from the moon, the stars, and the sea. Here, even the angels are morally compromised, and the stark hopelessness of the setting matches the speaker's mood. Digging a bit deeper, though, the poem is also set within the mind of its narrator, which is tormented by both his love for Annabel Lee and the agony of her death. The constant return to Annabel Lee's name shows that the speaker's mind is stuck on its thoughts of her—and through the poem, the reader briefly inhabits this troubled, fractured psyche.
Literary Context
Edgar Allan Poe is considered a major figure in the American Romantic movement, which celebrated the overwhelming beauty of nature, the power of the individual, and the glory of the past. Where earlier Enlightenment-era writers like Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift aspired to elegant phrasings and satirical wit, the Romantics preferred to write passionate verse that valued the mysteries and terrors of the imagination over crisp rationality.
Like "Annabel Lee," Poe's "Eulalie" and "Ulalume" focus on the death of a beautiful young woman. Poe called this "the most poetical topic in the world."
Poe's literary output was by no means limited to poetry, of course, and many of his short stories are considered classics. He helped to establish the Gothic genre in American literature and also explored detective fiction and sci-fi. Poe's continuing influence over literature can hardly be overstated. In particular, his work greatly influenced the French Symbolist poets. Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was also in part inspired by "Annabel Lee."
Historical Context
Poe was orphaned at a young age and grew up fostered by a wealthy family in Virginia. After dropping out of university and the army, he became one of the first writers of the time to make a living from publishing his stories and criticism. Though his 1845 publication of "The Raven" won him considerable fame, Poe grappled with financial and mental difficulties throughout his life.
Many believe "Annabel Lee" is based on Poe's real-life wife (and cousin) Virginia Clemm. Clemm died of tuberculosis at age 24, and her death appears to have significantly affected her husband; dying women appear in many of Poe's subsequent works.
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