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Nicole Olson

Jodi Price

ENGL 1302.NT3

Critical Analysis

August 13, 2018

A Dark Sky and Stormy Sea:

An Explication of Edgar Allen Poe’s

“Annabel Lee”

The poem “Annabel Lee,” by Edgar Allen Poe, centers around conflict. As the tale first

unfolds, it takes the form of two peaceful stanzas introducing the speaker and Annabel Lee. It

also introduces the speaker’s love for Annabel Lee before an abrupt shift occurs; the next two

stanzas then describe Annabel Lee’s death, an event which thoroughly disturbs the speaker. In

the last two stanzas, there is a shift back to positivity as the speaker delivers an ode to Annabel

Lee. Ultimately, it is Poe’s unique writing style that captures this boundless love, childlike

innocence, and profound grief in the same poem while still maintaining a hint of his traditional

macabre nature.

The only literal representation of immaturity comes from the speaker: “I was a child and

she was a child” (Poe 7). In admitting their youth, the speaker supports the juvenile tone already

presented by the relatively simple sentence structure and vocabulary. This basic syntax becomes

a symbol of purity, as is demonstrated by the speaker stating the ideal that Annabel Lee “lived

with no other thought / Than to love and be loved by me” (Poe 5-6) (Johnson par. 2). Such a
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simple yet egocentric view of the world is characteristic of children, for their minds have not yet

developed enough to comprehend abstract ideas and alternate viewpoints. From there, the

immaturity of the poem becomes more implied through the poetic devices of rhythm, rhyme, and

repetition.

Rhythm and rhyme are the most easily recognizable of these that the author employs to

create a juvenile tone throughout the poem. Whether reading the poem silently or aloud, a

“lulling rhythm,” (Empric par.1) which children are often partial to, is apparent. In part, this

comes from the meter, which is primarily anapestic – a few iambs are located throughout the

lines for support. However, other factors like end-line rhyme contribute to the rhythm as well;

for example, the rhyme between “ago” (Poe 1) and “know” (Poe 3) and the rhyme between

“love” (Poe 27) and “above” (Poe 30) both increase the flow of the poem.

Another important method the author uses to show childlike nature is repetition; children

have a tendency to repeat words and phrases, and they generally enjoy seeing and hearing those

duplicate sounds. Throughout the poem, Poe relies heavily on the rhyme between “sea” and

“Lee,” thereby employing that young verbiage and representing the speaker’s immature fixation

on the past. (Empric, par. 1). The repetition of the word “love” also depicts that stagnation; the

speaker is clinging to that love for Annabel Lee as a coping mechanism against the flood of grief

they are experiencing. It is in the third stanza, when the grief itself is depicted, that the tone of

the poem undergoes its first shift.

Imagery is one of the main tactics used to highlight the urgent terror that strikes the

speaker in the third stanza. The strongest example of this is in the fifteenth and sixteenth lines,
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when the speaker says, “A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling / My beautiful Annabel Lee” (Poe).

From the first line comes visual images of gusts and clouds, auditory images of the sound of air

rushing past, and tactile images of the sensation of wind. The second line builds the visual and

abstract images of Annabel Lee that are generated throughout the poem.

On the other hand, the mention of wind also begins the use of symbolism. While a

normal wind cannot kill, it is likely used here to represent death itself; a child would only notice

a stormy gale or dying breath instead of the actual cause of passing. Then, in the next line, the

speaker mentions “her highborn kinsmen” (Poe 17) and how they “bore her away… / To shut her

up in a sepulchre” (Poe 18-19). Most likely, they are nothing more than Annabel Lee’s relatives

come to take care of her funeral; however, on a more symbolic level, they represent the angels of

her ancestors, authority figures who seek to intervene, and again, death. This reference leads into

the next two stanzas and the poem’s main antithesis: angels and demons.

As the attitude of the speaker becomes increasingly disturbed, rhyme and repetition are

used for a different kind of emphasis. Here, the speaker is trying to highlight the cruelty of

Heaven by juxtaposing the angels with demons. One way this is accomplished is with the

internal rhyme of “chilling” and “killing” (Poe 26). By combining the earlier imagery with the

dark connotation of the words and scenario themselves, the speaker is not just expressing their

grief as anger; they are also trying to elicit sympathy from the reader (Qing par. 4).

The conflict of a child’s simplified yet fantastic vision of the world also comes back now

to underscore the sinister tone of the speaker’s raw grief; lacking the ability to accept that death
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is a natural thing, the speaker becomes mad with grief and childishly blames angels – an

allegedly good force – for the death of Annabel Lee (Empric par. 1). Repetition is also employed

here, with the word “chilling,”, suggesting that the grief freezes the speaker in time.

Interestingly, there is only one major use of caesura in the entire poem, and it occurs

during the grief-oriented stanzas. As the speaker begins to explain the death of Annabel Lee as

the angels’ fault, there is an abrupt stop in both the plot of the poem and the sentence itself:

“Yes! – that was the reason (as all men know, / In this kingdom by the sea)” (Poe 23-24). The

speaker’s sudden need to and method by which they justify their thoughts seem to reveal that the

speaker’s mind is growing increasingly unstable.

The tone then goes through a final major shift; the fifth and sixth stanzas become an ode

to love and to Annabel Lee. Poe utilizes partial enjambment to emphasize an aside where the

speaker says that their love outperformed “the love / of those who were older than we – / Of

many far wiser than we –“ (Poe 27-29). While some have argued that this statement belies the

still-juvenile nature of the speaker (Kelly par. 4), there is also credence to the idea that the shift

from negative back to positive demonstrates maturation, perhaps in the form of moving from an

angry stage of grief to a more accepting stage of grief.

Also notable is the way that the poem ends with a description of Annabel Lee’s beauty as

another reason for the speaker to love her; the phrase “beautiful Annabel Lee” is repeated

multiple times, but the word “love,” which was prevalent throughout the rest of the poem, is left

out (Johnson par. 12). Internal rhyme makes the strongest appearance here, rhyming
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“beams…dreams,” “rise…eyes,” and “tide…side…bride” (Poe 34-39). The rhymes bring the

overstated imagery into the melody of the poem, conducting a soothing closing that leaves

lasting images. In some ways, the rhythmic pattern of the poem could be compared to ocean

waves, thus indirectly highlighting one of the poem’s key elements with its structure.
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Works Cited

Empric, Julienne H. “A Note on ‘Annabel Lee,’.” Poetry for Students, edited by Ira Mark Milne,

vol. 9, Gale, 2000,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420030982/GLS?u=txshracd2530&sid=GLS&xid=2500

8708. Accessed 1 Aug. 2018. Originally published in Poe Studies, vol. 6, no.1, June

1973, p. 26.

Johnson, Jeannine. “Overview of ‘Annabel Lee’.” Poetry for Students, edited by Ira Mark

Milne, vol. 9, Gale, 2000,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420030978/GLS?u=txshracd2530&sid=GLS&xid=e9d2

dbab. Accessed 1 Aug. 2018.

Kelly, David. “Overview of ‘Annabel Lee’.” Poetry for Students, edited by Ira Mark Milne, vol.

9, Gale, 2000,

link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420030979/GLS?u=txshracd2530&sid=GLSxid=01535

ddc. Accessed 1 Aug. 2018.

Poe, Edgar A. “Annabel Lee.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, edited by

Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig, Pearson, 2015, no pag. Accessed 1 Aug. 2018.

Qing, Huang. “Appreciating Annabel Lee from the Perspective of Stylistics.” Overseas English,

no. 8, 2017, p. 216,

www.cqvip.com/read/read.aspx?id=72878989504849554856494849. Accessed 1 Aug.

2018.