Literary Devices In Annabel Lee

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, is a tragic love poem, taking place in a kingdom seemingly far away. In the poem, Poe uses various literary techniques and descriptions to suggest the themes of love and death, and to create the idea that love transcends death. Overall, “Annabel Lee” rhymes with an “ee” sounds at every indented line in the poem, and while other lines occasionally rhyme, the majority of the time they do not. This poem also alternates between iambic pentameter and iambic tetrameter, with the stanzas of this poem alternating between being 6 lines and 8 lines long. There is one consistent speaker throughout the poem, with few other characters making short appearances. Poe also uses multiple refrains throughout his poem, as seen

Lines 27 through 29 state that Annabel and the narrator’s love was a greater force than the love “of those who were older” and those that were “far wiser” than them as well. The narrator continues on with his defiance of outside forces acting on his love, believing that neither angels in Heaven nor demons in Hell could ever truly separate the lovers, for they “Can [n]ever dissever my soul from the soul/Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,” (32-33). The lines 30 through 33 provide the idea that love is eternal and transcends all, even death. These lines also provide a shift in the image we have of the setting of this story. The once beautiful image of a kingdom by the shimmering sea is transformed into a stormy, dark, and ominous ocean of Hell beside a tomb instead of the kingdom. The shift also can show a change in the narrator’s perception of the world, where he once believed in the goodness of beauty of life, but once the light of his life was lost, he saw the world as a darker version of what once was, entirely revolving around Annabel’s death. Where he once saw the whole image, his vision is now zoomed in on her loss and his world has shrunk without her in his life