Imagery In Annabel Lee

“Annabel Lee” was written by Edgar Allen Poe in May of 1849, 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 refers to a number of different women Poe had in his life, but most people think this poem refers to the memory of Virginia Clemm. Virginia Clemm married Poe when she was thirteen, and died in 1847 before she turned twenty-five. The poem has the romantic image of a beautiful girl who was taken away from this world too suddenly and too young. In “Annabel Lee”, Poe uses imagery and diction to create a very supernatural and mythical setting while telling a story of how a powerful love and nature created a wonderful, but also painful, memory.

When

The sea is one of the biggest examples, along with clouds, wind, the moon, and the stars. Nature is always present in the background of this poem. Like everything else that the narrator deals with in this poem, nature is always a little scary and threatening. That’s why it is so important to this poem. It threatens the narrator, and kills his beloved Annabel Lee, but it also comforts him in the end. You can see this when the author says, “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” (ll. 34-37). Annabel isn’t brought back to him physically, but the moon and stars help him see a wonderful, comforting image of her when he

Annabel Lee is a fairy-tale girl that is actually based on one of the women Poe had in his life. Now nobody knows for sure which of the girls Poe is talking about, but 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 who “was about fifteen when Poe met her” (Booth #17) and Poe was also a child. Sarah clearly fits the description given to us in the poem. The imagery surrounding “Annabel Lee” is crazy. Who she is, is a controversial topic in this poem. Also, this poem starts with a beautiful memory of Annabel, then things change when Poe gives the image of Annabel being killed by a chilling wind. He rhymes chilling with killing, creating harsh sounds to describe the way she died and leaving a terrible connotation of her death.

There is even more imagery in this poem, like the “Highborn Kinsmen”, the sepulchre, the angel/seraphs, and the moon and the stars. All of these play an important part in this poem. For instance, the moon and the stars play an important part because these bring Annabel Lee back to our narrator every night. That allows the reader to see the image of our narrator looking at the stars and moon and being able to see the twinkle in his Annabel Lee’s eyes and