Analysis Of Annabel Lee

“Annabel Lee” was written in May of 1849 by Edgar Allen Poe, just a few months prior to his death. First appearing in the Southern Literary Messenger in November of 1849 after Poe’s death. This poem is often referred to a number of different women Poe had in his life, but most people think this poem is referred to the memory of Virginia Clemm. Virginia Clemm married Poe when she was thirteen, and died in 1847 before she turned twenty-five. This work of Poe’s has this romantic image of a beautiful girl who was taken away from this life too sudden and too young. In “Annabel Lee”, Poe uses imagery and diction to create a very supernatural and mythical setting when telling a story of how a powerful love and nature created a wonderful but also painful

Annabel Lee is Poe making up a fairy-tale girl that is based on one of Poe’s women in his life. Now nobody is for sure which of the girls he is taking about we have an idea. Most people think that it is either Virginia Clemm or Sarah Elmira Royster Shelton. “Poe writes: “I was a child and she was a child.” Virginia was a child, to be sure; but Poe, twice her age, most certainly was not” (Booth #17). So that doesn’t fit with Virginia but it does with Sarah “was about fifteen when Poe met her” (Booth #17). So Sarah fits that description. The imagery surrounding who “Annabel Lee,” is herself is crazy. And who she is, is such a controversial topic about this poem. Also, this poem starts with this beautiful memory of Annabel, then things change when Poe gives the image of when Annabel is killed by a chilling wind. He then rhymes it with killing, which is the harshest way to say she died. Which leaves a terrible memory of

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See the pattern? Sometimes the ending to the long line does rhyme with any other ending to long lines. On the other hand, the short lines always end with the same ee sound. Which after reading the poem Poe only uses four words to end the short lines: “sea,” “Lee,” “we” and “me.” And I think that’s pretty interesting, because I didn’t realize that the first time I read that. Finally we are going to briefly look at meter, because you could probably teach a whole class on just this. I’m not going to go into much detail about it though. Poe was very interested in how poems fit together, and what effect the meter could have on the reader. Poe uses two poetic tools. He mixes what’s called a anapest (which is two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable) with what’s called an iamb (which is most commonly heard in poetry, a unstressed syllable followed by a stress). Here is an example: It was ma/ny and ma/ny a year/ ago/

The first three groups are your anapest, see how each has 3 syllables each and the last syllable is stressed. And the last on only has two syllables, that’s your iamb. Poe does this throughout the poem. Which makes the experience of reading it more textured and