Love is a force that brings people together and creates irreplaceable connections, while death takes those connections and tears them apart. Even though the two seem to be polar opposites, love and death are not always mutually exclusive. Edgar Allan Poe was a writer whose short stories and poems would combine love and death into “a reflection of the darker side of Romanticism” that portrayed death as nothing more than a temporary obstacle (Richards-Gustafson). Through his use of literary techniques in his poems “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume,” Edgar Allan Poe reveals that not even death is strong enough to destroy the love between two souls.
Falling in line with the recurring gothic tones of his writing, the death of young women in their prime
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In both poems, the narrator is struggling to cope with the grief of their lost love, but in each poem, the narrator dealt with it differently. In “Annabel Lee,” the narrator accepted that she was dead, and spent his time reflecting on their love, and blaming the forces of life for taking her away from him. In “Ulalume,” the narrator was so lost in his brooding that he repressed the memory of his love, only remembering the importance of the date and the location once his soul led him there. Both of these poems touch on topics such as love and death, as did many more of Poe’s works, due to the fact that they were written when romanticism was widely popular in literature and the arts (Richards-Gustafson). “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume” are connected through their themes of a dead lover and the narrator’s soul feeling lost without its mate. While either of these poems could have been considered a result of his tragic childhood and unsteady life, the image of a young girl taken away from the narrator while she was still frozen in her prime makes it more likely that Virginia Eliza Clemm was used as a muse for his poetry and short stories. These themes and recurring subjects would not have been seamlessly woven into Poe’s writing without the use of the poetic and structural techniques that showed the connection between love, death, grief, and the lingering of the human …show more content…
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Edgar Allan Poe’s poems The Raven, And Annabel Lee Contrast in many different ways but i'll be highlighting three of them in this paper.The mood of these poems is sad because their true loves die in very different settings and how they handle the grief is different from one going totally insane to the other man being calm and almost a little light hearted about it.
Edgar Allan Poe's view on poetry is that all poems must be a "rhythmical creation of beauty". In his eyes, melancholy and sadness is beautful. He thinks that the death of a young beautiful woman is itself full of beauty. In both "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven", Poe writes about this so-called beauty.
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The Norton Anthology of American Literature (vol. 1). New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. p1204 - 1206. Jacobs, William. A. Jay. Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe spent most of his life grieving for lost loved ones. His first wife Virginia Clemm died five years into their marriage of tuberculosis. Poe endured many tragedies and his poetry reflects his agony and torture.
The diction of “Annabel Lee” helps create the impression of a fairy tale-like love story. With words such as “maiden” (line 3), “kingdom” (line 8), “beautiful” (line 16), “high-born kinsmen” (line 17), Poe paints a picture of a whimsical, fantastic love story when, in reality, Annabel Lee dies in her girlhood. This is wherein lies the irony: the glamorization of the persona’s love of Annabel Lee
This poem is about the narrator’s wife, who ends up dying young. In the poem Poe starts by saying “And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me” (Poe, 691). Later in the poem the narrator says “That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee” (Poe, 691). In this poem Poe expresses how women are beautiful figures by making the death of Annabel Lee seem so alluring. He takes such amazing experiences as a comparison to his 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” (Poe, 692). Although Annabel Lee dies in the poem, it doesn’t seem as sorrowful because of the beautiful imagery expressed in this poem. Some may say that this poem specifically relates to his wife Virginia because of the saying “I was a child and she was a child” (Poe, 691), as we know they married so young. He wanted to express his wife’s beauty through this poem, and by the narrator using the phrase “My beautiful Annabel Lee” four times in the poem it expresses how he looked at her, with such
Throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s life, death was a frequent visitor to those he loved around him. When Poe was only 3 years old, his loving mother died of Tuberculosis. Because Poe’s father left when he was an infant, he was now an orphan and went to live with the Allan’s. His stepmother was very affectionate towards Edgar and was a very prominent figure in his life. However, years later she also died from Tuberculosis, leaving Poe lonely and forlorn. Also, later on, when Poe was 26, he married his cousin 13-year-old Virginia, whom he adored. But, his happiness did not last long, and Virginia also died of Tuberculosis, otherwise known as the Red Death, a few years later. After Virginia’s death, Poe turned to alcohol and became isolated and reckless. Due to Edgar Allan Poe’s loss of those he cared for throughout his life, Poe’s obsession with death is evident in his works of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in which in all three death is used to produce guilt.
The Allan family including the recently adopted Edgar Allan Poe, formerly known as Edgar
The loss of Edgar’s dear Virginia devastated him, his depression was so consuming that he went months without writing. After those months though, the only way he could express his feelings worthily was through poetry. Poe’s work Ulalume better expresses his feeling of pain and loss of his dear wife Virginia; while Annabel Lee (Annabel representing his wife) shows the deep love he felt for her during and after she died, and how much he cared for her, Ulalume dives deeper into the feelings that controlled him after his heartbreaking loss. Most of Annabel Lee talks about how much he loves Annabel even after she died; how everything reminds him of her, and how his love for her will never end.
Welch, A. M. (May, 1849). Edgar Allen Poe: Annabel Lee. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University.
In this project, I will be discussing about my poet Edgar Allan Poe. Poe had written numerous of poems and stories but the one I chose was “Annabel Lee”. This poem was written in 1849 which was a long time ago. Even though this poem is centuries old, it is still a well known poem. This whole project includes a biography, literary movement, and a explication about the poem.
The greatest and most outstanding poem to ever be heard by human ears is without question, “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe. A brief introduction to this famous literary piece is that it is a ballad that was published in 1849 by American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, and interestingly, right after his mysterious death. The poem illustrates the love between a young man and woman, Annabel Lee, who have the world against their love, but still stay together and prove can still be present after death, when Annabel Lee dies. “Annabel Lee” is the greatest poem to ever exist because of its historical aspect, it being very verbally appealing from its genius sound devices implemented, and its symbolism that assist in the reader visualising the setting and understanding
Hyperboles, metaphors, repetition, rhyme, meter, and imagery all shine brightly through Annabel Lee. “She lived with no other thought than to love and to be loved by me”(emphasis added). This short excerpt represents a hyperbole perfectly, as the exaggeration stresses the beauty and simplicity of their eternal love. The imagery used in this writing amplifies the graphic contrast of love and death, and inspires empathetic notions towards the author. Phrases included such as “the moon never beams,” “the stars never rise,” “all the night-tide i lay by the side,” and “kingdom by the sea,” brings descriptive images of the setting, and the loud passion felt by Poe.