To Science

This is also a kind of protest against science because science killed poet’s imagination. When we
say science it’s not only literally science but also the whole worldview or attitude to life which
was dominant in the United States in the early 19th century at the time when the poem was
published. There was a heavy influence of the ideas of Enlightenment where analytical mind was
valued much more than imagination and creativity. The poem is very nostalgic, looking
backward and lamenting over the state of affairs now and at the same time he voices a kind of
protest, he is not just accepting that. So, the very lament is at the same time a protest. This
protest is actually very American about this poem. There is irony in his words because he
mentions mythological creatures in a poem entitled Sonnet to Science. The very form of the
poem which is a sonnet might be seen as semi-ironic as if he wanted to show to the world that he
is capable of writing verses using these very rigid forms from the tradition. However, he puts
them to a different use. He uses a very traditional form (sonnet) as if he wants to prove that he
really in command of poetic skills. At the same time he puts them to different use which is quite
contrary to the neo-classical ideal. Neo-classical theory of art was also very much concerned
with form, simplicity and clarity. He is in a very technically skillful poem? / form? actually
denying neo-classicism artistically and he is opting for more romantic view of art. He uses this to
express lament and protest.
Who is the loser in this poem?
- I guess that he himself is not a loser because he will certainly continue writing poetry. However
poets generally are more or less threatened by the worldview imposed by the rational thinking
and scientific discoveries. In my opinion, he does not object the science as such, but he objects
the dictate of science. In his opinion the dictate of reason, mechanical thinking and scientific
classification are very cruel.
In which part of the poem does he explicitly states that he is hostile to science? He is directly
talking to science by calling it a vulture and he is even challenging the science (Why are you
behaving that way? Why are you directing your hatred towards poets?). Again we can see his
protest in these lines because he is challenging the science in the way that he says do what ever
you want to me, but i will not give up.
He also says: how should he, namely the poet with whom he the poetic voice identifies himself,
how should the poet love you science? How could he love science and why should he?

To Helen
I was talking very briefly last time about how this poem came about. This poem was initially
dedicated to Jane Stanard, the mother of his good friend from school. Also we have the
identification of Jane Stanard with classical Helen.
The first stanza
He compares the beauty of legendary Helen, who was in the classical tradition and literature
praised as the most beautiful woman in the world, with the Nicean barks. Nicean = the city
Nicea. With the mention of this city he simply wants to evoke the imagery of the past, very
classical images, of a once splendid city from the past. How come that this comparison came
about? It becomes a little bit clearer because he in the second stanza again evokes this imagery of
boats. He does not compare her beauty to a flower (which would be a more stereotypical
comparison), but to a boat and this makes it clear that he is not talking only about he physical
beauty, but also about what she means to him, what good she did for him. According to the
legend those Nicean barks were small sailing ships and their function was to bring, as he says,
the tired travellers back home. So he talks not that much about the physical imagery, but more
metaphorically. He talks about this woman who brought him home. She was a beacon of hope to
him, bringing him back home and healing him also in this return. But what kind of return is it?
- I think that she might be a mother figure to him because I read somewhere that she was like a
second mother to him and that she encouraged him to write poetry.
We have no way of knowing if that was exactly so. She may have also probably been when he
was 14-15 years old and she was 27-28. Maybe there was also a degree of this juvenile
infatuation and also physical kind of infatuation with that woman to whom the poem is
dedicated. And at the same time there is a blend of maybe physical dedication, but also this
mental dedication to her. He feels, or sees her as a kind of muse that inspired him to write poetry.
She was one of few people in those formative years when people are very sensitive and touchy to
show interest in what he was doing and encourage him to continue on that track of writing poetry
and that she may have introduced him to the world of classical mythology as he was very young
at that time. She may have opened up to him, metaphorically speaking, the world of Greek and
Roman mythology, that she was the one who directed him somehow to reading more of the
classical literature. That might be another possibility.
- Just as the Nicean barks brought the tired travellers back home she as his second mother
signifies a path to a new home.
Functioning as not only a muse, but also as a guide, as somebody that brings him somewhere
where he actually had already belonged for a long time, but was not conscious of that, was not
aware. So, she opened up the whole world of classical antiquity for him, without him being
aware of that before. So that he at least feels this entrance into the new worlds of literature and
mythology not as a beginning, but as a return. As if he saw almost, through her guidance,
recognized in an instance that that’s where he belongs, that’s his homeland metaphorically
speaking; classical history, classical legends and generally poetry and literature. So obviously,
this woman had a very formative influence on him.
Wanderer is clearly an echo of himself, identification of himself. So, he sees himself as a weary
tired traveller. He is tired of travelling. In this sense it is not physical travelling, but more
perhaps a form of spiritual travelling (mental and intellectual travelling). Very important here is
that we have this element of intellectual travelling or not that much travelling, but wandering,
going in circles searching for his own way, probably trying to describe his mind when he was 14
or 15 years old not really knowing which direction his mind should take, where his intellectual
preferences should lay. She helped him, again as a sort of a guide, to come to his true self, to
recognize wherein his real interests lay. That’s why this image is very important where he sees
himself, back then at that time before her influence lightened up his intellect, as somebody who
was a little bit lost, as a way worn traveller and he was wandering about, drifting about not really
knowing where his destination should be or is.
- Maybe at the age of 14 he was trying to find his own way, she was maybe a guide to him, a
person on who he could rely, to whom he can talk. Maybe this was why she was so important to
him, because she was always there for him and always there to guide him, to show him the right
way.
It is really interesting here to see Poe’s sentences, which metaphors he uses. Central metaphor is
that of the boat (ship) and sailing and it opens up the whole series of meanings which are
intertwined and interconnected.
In which part of this first stanza do we see that this world that she presented to him is not the
new beginning, but that it is symbolically, metaphorically speaking just a moment in which he
realized where he had belonged from the very beginning, but was not aware of it? So she just
sharpened his awareness for where he had belonged from the beginning. “To his own native
shore” – this way worn traveller comes back to his OWN shore, his own native shore. This is
again a very romantic theme – going back home metaphorically speaking. But, first you need to
realize where your home had been from the very beginning. So, she sharpened his awareness of
the things that had already been there in him.
- The imagery is really wonderful and Helen can also be seen as the lighthouse on the shore
showing the way while he was wandering, but also when he was going back.
Yes, signaling that there is a shore which he can call his own and that he was not aware of that or
to remind him constantly of that. Central theme about these metaphors of ships and boats is
about sharpening the awareness of person as to where his real interest and real self is to be found.
So, she had that function, she sharpened his awareness of what his true self, what his true identity
is and where his native shore is. And this imagery is continued in the second stanza.

The second stanza

“Thy hyacinth hair” (black as raven) - he is being more traditional deliberately following the
neo-classical tradition. In the time of neo-classicism (we talk about the 18th century) was the
revival of interest in the classical tradition, that’s why it’s neo-classical, so that the poets such as
Alexander Pope deliberately wrote poems such as this one in which they evoked imagery from
the classical past and also used many of the classical stereotypes in description of various themes
such as the female beauty. So this hyacinth hair was classical ideal coming from the
Mediterranean where dark hair was considered beautiful. So this became classical ideal of female
beauty unlike the Renaissance period and the tradition of sonnets and the romance tradition in
North Europe where the ideal of female beauty changed and it was more blonde hair, blue eyes.
So, he wanted to evoke the atmosphere of the classical world and that’s why the hyacinth hair.
Naiads were the water nymphs who dwelled near fountains, springs, streams and brooks. Naiads
airs = držanje ili jednostavno izgled. He simply compares her to the water nymphs from the
classical mythology. He compares her beauty and her posture to that of the water nymphs which
is again very complementary.
In the second stanza he expands the imagery that he has already introduced in the first stanza. He
again begins with the description of himself, just continuing the thought from the first stanza.
- Than he compares her to the ideal beauty of Helen of Troy who was the most beautiful woman
in the world. She had that classical face, black her and was very Naiad-like.
What is he actually saying? Can you reformulate the entire second stanza into one sentence? It is
just the modification of the thought already expressed in the first stanza. Here he is more explicit,
he refers to the classical world explicitly and also says I was the one who was wandering,
metaphorically speaking, and then you with your beauty (which can be interpreted not only as
the outward appearance, but also as intellectual beauty) brought me to this native shore. Now he
explicitly states what this native shore is, namely, the whole beauty and grandeur of the classical
mythology, literature, philosophy, poetry of ancient Greek and Rome.
There is no romance tradition of unattainability, but he speaks about mental bondage, almost
bondage, or mental affiliation. As if his soul recognizes hers and he is thankful for what she did
for him, namely sharpening his awareness of whom he really is and what matters to him.
- This poem might be a metaphor of him running away from the industrialized world. He wants
to show that he is not going to be completely immersed in this new world, but he is going to
remember the past. He is going to remember her; she will remain the lasting influence on him
(mentally, emotionally, intellectually).
Even here you have protest expressed, although not that explicitly as in the first poem. So, he is
here indirectly dissociating himself from his own time.

The third stanza

In the third stanza he introduces a new image which is again classically inspired. Symbolism of
the lamp = knowledge, light, hope. Again the evocation of the imagery of what she represents to
him, she is the source of light in all potential meanings of that word.
He refers to her as Psyche. Greek mythology, she was lover of Cupid (god of love). According to
mythology the goddess of love Venus became jealous of Cupid because he fell in love with
Psyche. This is a classical tale of hindrances to real love. Whereas it is maybe not that explicit in
the first two stanzas and we might be mislead to think that she is just epitome of physical beauty
to him here in the third stanza full implications of her significance to him become clear. She also
represented an ideal of spiritual beauty and she serves as a mental and spiritual guide. So she is
no longer identified just with Helen, but he wants to underline these other aspects of her
significance to him by now comparing her in the third stanza to Psyche, to the soul, to the figure
which is associated with spirituality, spiritual, mental, inward beauty.
What about Holy Land? He did not mean the Holy Land in the Christian sense. He is referring to
Greek and Rome.
Is this a love poem in the traditional sense (like Petrarch’s Laura)? It is not, this poem is much
more profound. There is definitely an emotional love, but it is almost a metaphysical love. Love
of the classical world. Not that much hearts recognized each other, but souls. There is strong
intellectual not only emotional, but also intellectual attachment.

The Haunted Palace

The poem The Haunted Palace was embedded in the short story The Fall of the House of Usher.
The entire poem reconfirms the major theme of the short story into which it is embedded and the
major theme here would be the description of decline of the human mind. It just echoes the main
theme of the tale.

The first and the second stanza

The first stanza
He clarifies the location of the palace. It was not i any visible kingdom, but in the dominion, in
the kingdom of a king of Thought. From the very beginning it is clear that this poem is
allegorical representation of something going on within the mind.
In the first two stanzas he is describing the ideal that existed long time ago. He describes the
initial situation while everything was still in order, everything is perfect still.
What about the palace? What is the palace and what is the kingdom in which the palace is
located? He speaks of the perfection that existed long time ago. This radiant, magnificent,
beautiful palace “reared its head” – this is ambiguous. How could a palace, a building rear its
head? He wanted to achieve this metaphor and it turned out a little bit clumsy because he wanted
to show that what he means by palace is actually human head, but if you read it on the literal
level that’s why it seems weird. So where did this palace (if we agree that this is a picture of
human head) stand? It was located in the place of the kingdom of Thought (the king is Thought).
Than it becomes rather obvious that the head is somehow part of a larger kingdom and that larger
kingdom is named here explicitly – Thought. He talks about the physical looks of the head, but
however there is something much deeper because the head is just an extension, or better said
part, of human mind. So the head was just the outward expression of something else to which it
belongs, of which it is a part; and it is a part of a much larger kingdom which is mind. The head
would be just the outward visible part of that which is much more profound and hidden, which is
inside and that is the inner state of mind, inner workings of human mind.
- Just as the kingdom rules over his kingdom, the mind rules over the head and the whole body.
What is central even in these first two stanzas is what goes on inside the head whereas the head
is just a superficial, visible part of a much larger entity which is the mind. In the first stanza
everything is still in the perfect order. The head, the visible part of the invisible mind = head and
mind are in the perfect accord, they are in perfect harmony just like Roderick Usher in the
beginning at least seems to be in perfect harmony with his house, with he mansion of the Ushers.
“Once a fair and stately palace…” – he is already hinting at the drama that is going to take place.
What is a seraph? Seraphs were the highest order of angels. He could have just said angles, but
he wanted to emphasize the magnificence of both the palace and the kingdom of Thought that it
was so beautiful and so harmonious that it even cast the shadow on the seraphs. So, it was more
beautiful, more radiant, more magnificent than the wings of a seraph. Where do the seraphs
spread their wings? What is the native shore of the seraphs? According to the chain of being
where do the angels dwell? In heaven. So what about that comparison? He says that a seraph
never spread his wings over half such a magnificent building and seraphs live in heaven. So if
they are spreading their wings over anything up there in heaven then that might be some
heavenly mansion, heavenly palace (not on this world), but this one that he is talking about is
more magnificent and more radiant than any potential heavenly mansion that any seraph could
spread his wings over. This is hyperbolic, he exaggerates. By using the metaphor of seraph he
wanted to emphasize of the radiance, magnificence, beauty and uniqueness of that palace. So,
this palace that he talks about is incomparable even with those in heaven.

The second stanza

In the second stanza he goes into more explicit metaphor. Certain metaphors or allegories that he
mentions stand for parts of human head. “Banners yellow” stand for blond hair; on the roof of
the palace, on the top of the head. He again introduces a hint that it was long ago preparing you
as a reader for the drama, for the dramatic turn of events. Then he continues with other
descriptions.
What about this imagery of “gentle air that dallied, in that sweet day, along the ramparts plumed
and pallid, a winged odor went away.”? Ramparts (bedemi) palace is the head and the ramparts
would be the external parts of the head – ears, nose. Than he talks about the winged odor and we
have another imagery of air and odor. What do you think he wanted to achieve with that? What
figure of speech is this winged odor? A quality which is normally not associated with odor is
here ascribed to it. This is an example of synesthesia, when you combine the qualities from two
different realms which normally would not belong together. What is he trying to evoke, what is
he trying to present? He is introducing through these images of gentle air and winged odor
variations of one and the same theme wanting to suggest to you as a reader how ideal and perfect
everything was. The whole place is enveloped in the gentle air. The general tone and atmosphere
that he wants to produce here is one of harmony and order, beauty and peace; mostly harmony
and peace somehow. Everything is in perfect harmony with each other. This sensation of
harmony was maybe also radiating outside.
So, generally, he is in the first two stanzas describing the mind which is in perfect accord with
itself, the person perfectly at peace, everything is very harmonious, orderly, at its place, the
person is very stable. So, he is talking about the ideal state of mind. This is someone who really
feels at one with himself, and everything is in perfect order and harmony. This inner harmony
reflects itself on the outside, it radiates, emanates on the outside in facial expressions.

Stanza 3 and 4
Stanza 3
He just continues in the similar way in which the first two stanzas are written, he continues
describing giving you more and more details still describing the perfect harmony, a person who
is harmonious with himself inward, the person who is still sane who has not still entered the
phase of inward, mental disintegration.
What about two luminous windows? They are obviously eyes. So, the person saw through the
eyes the wanderers in the happy valley and the spirits. Who are the wanders and who are the
spirits? These wanderers who are in the happy valley are the good, positive thoughts within the
mind and his mind is a happy valley because it is harmonious. So, in this happy valley, in this
happy state of mind, when you are in a happy, good state of mind your thoughts are also good.
Why are the thoughts presented here as the wanderers? Our thoughts tend to jump to and fro
unless you pacify them through meditation. So, the wanderers are actually thoughts roaming
about, occurring in his mind which is presented here as a happy valley. His mind is watching
through his eyes, practically, and what he sees through the eyes because of the happy inward
state of mind are the spirits moving musically to a well-tuned lute, and he sees the king in all his
glory as the ruler of the realm.
- I think that those wanderers are not just happy thoughts, but just wanderers outside the house.
You mean anyone who happens to encounter the person. That might be another possibility, when
they have an eye contact with that person then they are able to see that that person is in accord
with himself because he radiates peace, harmony and happiness to the outside.
Another possibility is that the wanderers are people who the person encounters. And the spirits
would be the thoughts within the mind and these thoughts are orderly and harmonious and that’s
why they are moving in an orderly, musical, beautiful and harmonious way. So, again you have a
picture of the human mind which is in accords, harmony with itself and everything is in perfect
order, there are no disruptions. The mind itself is compared to the well-tuned lute; everything is
still in the perfect order.
What about this Porphyrogene? He just borrows the name, it’s not that important for the
interpretation. By using his proper name he just wanted to evoke the imagery from the past, from
the classical tradition. Porphyrogene doesn’t have any specific reference I would say, but
through the name he simply evokes the image of someone from long ago, he maybe wanted to
show that this happened long time ago. So, this mind which is well-tuned is filled with beautiful,
harmonious and peaceful thoughts which are reflected in these luminous windows, radiant eyes.
And it the center of the mind you could see the ruler of the realm. He is still the ruler, the brain
works properly.

Stanza 4
What about the fair palace door? He extends the imagery, now he goes down. The doors might
represent the mouth. Rubies and pearls = beautiful mouth. He emphasizes the beauty of the
mouth belonging to that same person. Through the mouth came out a group of beautiful sounds.
Their duty was to sing in voices of beauty about the wit and wisdom of their king. So again you
have an image of harmony. What comes out of the mouth of the person who is sane and in
perfect harmony with himself is just as melodious and harmonious and makes sense. If you are
happy and sane then not only will you radiate that peace through your eyes, but also through
what you are saying. So everything you say will make clear to everybody else, will confirm, that
you are happy and harmonious.
So he is just extending the imagery. Throughout two thirds of the poem he basically represents
the ideal state of mind of a person who is in harmony with his own mind. And then only in the
ending we have the dramatic turn of events.

Stanza 5 and 6
Here we have a completely opposite image. In line with what he said before: first they were
wanderers and now he calls them travellers; first it was a happy valley and now he calls it that
valley (it is no longer happy); what they see when they look at the person are no longer luminous
windows, but the red-litten windows (blood-shot eyes) suggesting all kinds of bad imagery; no
longer what can be seen inside are spirits moving musically (harmonious thoughts), but they are
now vast forms (these thoughts are now distorted, they have undergone a very negative
transformation, they are very dark and bleak), they no longer move musically as before to a well-
tuned lute, but they now move fantastically in a negative sense, disorderly, chaotically,
randomly, so he no longer has the control of his own thoughts, the concept of his mind has
changed, thoughts are no longer beautiful, but are dangerous, painful, chaotic. This is a picture of
a deranged mind, mind which has descended into madness. The melody is no longer beautiful
(well-tuned lute), but a discordant melody. This is paradoxical because the melody is normally
something that is harmonious, but now it is discordant, there is no harmony. So, perfection is
lost, harmony no longer exists.
What are these evil things that made all this happen, that turned the person from sane to a
lunatic? “Evil things in robes of sorrow…” – zle stvari u haljama od tuge.
- We can say that this is a reference the tale The Fall of the House of Usher because Roderick
Usher mourned after the death of his sister and he became deranged.
That might be right. What can cause a person to go crazy? = The evil thoughts, painful thoughts,
the death of somebody close to you, maybe the sorrow, the feeling of loss. These evil thoughts
destroyed the integrity and harmony of his mind.
From his present situation, which is descending into insanity, from that point of view he may
have glimpses or some vague remembrance of how it used to be. So, in a mind of an insane
person there are glimpses of an earlier period while the mind was in harmony, but that
remembrance is very dim, very vague. He may want to say that there are even in an insane mind
occasional, very brief moments of dim remembrance of previous happiness and harmony.
- I think that in the last couple of lines there are lunatic feelings. He basically says that once
harmonious mind that has now gone mad can now only laugh hysterically, but cannot smile any
more.
Yes, that would be the very ending. Laughing maybe stands for madness, insanity; his descend
into madness; whereas smiling would in this context be associated with the earlier state of mind.
What would you say, how does this poem fit into what we had said during the lectures about the
predominant themes in Poe’s literary opus, especially the tales because this poem is a part of a
tale? We said that his vision of the world was not optimistic if we disregard he earlier poems
which are about reviving the splendor of the classical age (the theme in the first two poems is
completely different). So here have the utmost of Poe’s literature; actually one of the recurrent
issues is his almost obsession or focus on death, madness, insanity, dark side of the human mind.
In the very ending of this poem he talks about the evil things etc. He was very much discouraged
with the issue of evil in the world. He was not only feeling unease about his own age because all
the things that we have mentioned before: industrialization, too much rationalism, his age was
governed too much by rational thinking etc.; but even beyond that on a more philosophical or
metaphysical level Poe was quite convinced of the constant presence of evil in the world. This
evil was never specified, and maybe not even evil that is strictly Christian, but in a more
metaphysical sense. This is recurrent issue in his tales and even here, as if he wanted to say, or he
was even obsessed by expressing this in his literature: how human life or human existence is
fundamentally determined by the experience of sorrow, pain, of potential madness; simply by
something that he subsumes by the term evil. As if he wanted to say that our world, or our
civilization at least at his time (the early 19th century) was already, to use the Biblical metaphor,
the fallen world, the world after the fall, simply the world which is caught into decay. So, he sees
the entire human existence and existence in the universe generally in terms of decay,
deterioration of the sense. These are very negative terms because of the domination of evil which
is manifested in various forms; one of the manifestations of evil is insanity, the things that can
happen to the mind of a human being, or generally the experience of pain, the experience of
sorrow, the experience of being in disharmony with yourself and with the environment, with the
world. He had a very pessimistic worldview which is expressed in literature.

Annabel Lee
And now we come to the chronologically seen the most recent poem. This is probably one of the
most famous of Poe’s poems next to The Raven. This is a quintessential example of American
romantic poems. Here you really see all romantic themes unified in one poem.

The first and the second stanza

The first stanza
What is the beginning like? What does it remind you of? What is the setting? Does this remind
you of any stereotypical beginning of other literary genres when he says “it was many and many
a year ago”? He is suggesting already a very fairytale-like tone and atmosphere. So, the first
information that we get is that it was a long time ago and then you have this very romantic image
of an unspecified kingdom on the shores of the unspecified sea. It actually doesn’t matter which
kingdom and which sea it was, it is one of this ratified images. What potential meaning could the
image of the sea evoke here?
- It evokes a sense of isolation.
Do you mean the isolation of the two of them or isolation of the entire kingdom?
- I mean the isolation of the kingdom, the kingdom of love because they love each other so much
that they became isolated from the rest of the world.
- This love was like madness – “love that was more than love”
We will come to this later in the second stanza where he expands the image. In the first stanza, to
go back to it, in this fairytale kingdom by the unnamed sea he introduces her image or her
character making a hint; again he is preparing the reader by hinting at, as he did in The Haunted
Palace that this idyllic state is not going to last long. So again we have a similar theme of first
happiness and then the deterioration of happiness. Then she is explicitly named for the first time
and there is again something very fairytale-like it the fact that her name is repeated throughout
the poem; this has a sort of a lullaby quality. And then he turns to the nature or character of her
love towards him. He is still not talking about his feelings for her that much.
What is he saying about Annabel Lee, about that maiden that he loved?
- I think that he refers to her as maiden because he wanted to say how innocent and young she
was; also that her love was innocent and strong.
So how is he characterizing her in these last two lines from the first stanza?
- He says that the only thing she ever wanted was to love him and for him to love her back.
So love for him and love that she might expect from him was the center of her universe which is
again a very romantic theme, unconditional love. Already in this first stanza we have a hint that
this love was on a verge of obsession at least so far, he is still hiding a lot of things.
- I think that it is interesting that he was so sure of their love. He is talking on her behalf and is so
sure about her feelings.

The second stanza

In the second stanza the image expands.
- Yes that they were both children, they were young and that their love was unconditional.
And then we have the line in which the nature or character of their love becomes more explicit
“We loved with a love that was more than love”. We can see that this love was a sort of
unearthly love.
- I wanted to say that this was not a physical love because he doesn’t mention that.
We do not know that, but that’s not the point because even if there was something more it is not
of importance here.
- It is more like a sort of divine love.
How is he again evoking imagery of…? (nisam mogla razumjeti šta kaže)
- They are both so pure and innocent.
He is constantly emphasizing the purity and intensity of their love. So it is a pure, ideal love, but
so ideal that it’s already verging on obsession. That’s again a very romantic theme, glorification
of the ideal love which as we will see later transcends many things.
Then again the repetition of her name this time attached to the personal pronoun to underline
their unity “I and my Annabel Lee”. Here we also have the internal rhyme “I and my Annabel
Lee”.
What about the seraphs? He again wants to say something about the ideal and intense nature of
their love. Just as he in the previous poem introduced the image of the seraph to amplify the
notion of magnificence of the palace something similar is being done here. What is he actually
saying? This is a very powerful thing, very romantic. He is glorifying the intensity of their love.
We again see the image of angles, of the highest order of angles that became jealous of their
love. According to the chain of being angles are superior creatures to the human beings; angles
do not know desire, but if they are capable of human-like emotions in some superior and angelic
form that would be certainly the seraphs, the highest archangels, that are capable of that kind of
pure or ideal love. However, he is saying that they surpassed the angles with intensity of their
love. So again there are suggestions that their love was unique, it was unearthly, it was not of this
world; it was so intense and so pure and idealistically so intense and so pure that even the
seraphs envied them and were jealous. And you have this typical romantic element of lonesome
lovers, a loving couple who is against the entire world and the entire universe. This is a typical
romantic exaggeration.
Here you have a very romantic poem, about a very romantic theme and look at where the dashes
occur, there is a certain pattern. For example when you look at the first and the second stanza
there is a kind of identical pattern. In the first stanza when he says “…the maiden there lived
whom you may know. By the name of ANNABEL LEE - ” a dash; in the second stanza “I and
my ANNABEL LEE - “ a dash. This figure of speech is called caesura (a pause). So every time
her name is explicitly mentioned in the poem it is followed by the dash.
- Maybe he wanted to emphasize, to make an impact on the reader by Annabel Lee and dashes.
Maybe he wanted to stress with these dashes additionally how significant or how important she
was to him. Every time her name is mentioned he had to stop for a while before he continues.
You can almost imagine someone retelling this poem as story to someone and every time her
name is mentioned this person stops for a while before he continues. Almost like every time her
name is mentioned he is somehow shaken and he needs to take a break to think again about her
significance before he continues and goes on with the story. Almost always when dashes are
introduced in the poetry they signify a sort of a pause, time given for the reflection not only for
the reader but also for the poetic voice to take some time for himself to reflect upon what has
been said; as if he needs time to go into himself, recover and then continue.
- I think that these dashes are used to emphasize their union that she was his and he was hers.
He is also suggesting some kind of incomplete thought as if he thinks that the language hits upon
certain boundary, as if he hits some sort of imaginary image and he cannot go beyond that limit
in terms of expression; expressing what she really meant to him. We can also look at the das as a
sort of mental inability to adequately, fully communicate the purity and the intensity of their
love. Whatever he is expressing is inadequate, it is never fully correspondent to what he feels;
the language is also sort of incomplete. Such kind of love not only did not exist anywhere
anytime on earth, but it doesn’t even exist in heaven since the angles envy them, they are jealous
of the intensity of their love.
The third stanza
In the poems such as this one Poe wanted to recreate the romantic sense of drama. Here we have
the theme of the death of a beautiful woman which was for him personally the most poetic
imaginable theme.
- I think that he had to mention that he and Annabel Lee were children because I think that if he
said that she was a lady we wouldn’t think of her and their love as pure as we do knowing that
they were children. I think that if he said that she was a fair lady we wouldn’t believe that the
seraphs were jealous of them.
And that that type of love could have been so pure and he wanted to convince us that it was. In
the third stanza he introduces the image of “her highborn kinsmen” who then he says came after
she died and they bore her away from him. Here you have a deliberately introduced contrast,
again a very romantic theme, between two of them who are pure and young (the purity of young
generation) in contrast to the older generation who he sees as the enemy, he sees them as hostile.
So not just the seraphs in heaven are hostile to them but also the people in their surroundings,
people who are older than them. So you have a very romantic theme and at the same time a very
American theme which is a part of this American literary protest tradition. He contrasts the
purity and intensity of the youth as opposed to the corruption connected with the establishment
and the older generation. This was reinvented in the 60s, for example through the hippie culture
and slogans like Never trust anyone over thirty, Die before thirty and be a beautiful corpse etc.
The older generation is seen as hostile, as enemies because they have forgotten what the purity of
love is. It is not quite clear here what happened but he leaves it deliberately very vague and
indefinite.
“Her highborn kinsmen” – we have the implication that they were powerful and rich. They came
and separated them one again. So it’s not enough punishment for him that death came from
heaven. Again you have an image of evil universe because in the poem the evil comes from the
seraphs in heaven, they are capable of envy which according to the chain of being they are not.
So again you have a very nihilistic picture of the universe, universe which is governed by evil of
some sort; even the angles are not immune to these very negative notions of Poe’s. So that’s not
punishment enough but in addition to this punishment first comes from the other world but in
this world again she is separated from him. The first separation comes inevitably through her
death and then as if it is not enough the second separation comes through the fact that her dead
body is taken away from him by her influential and rich relatives who want to separate them
even in this way.
We again have the repetition of the phrase in this kingdom by the sea which now has a darker
tone. The sepulcher is next to the sea. Any remarks on this? What about his state of mind? Is it a
logical thing to you that he is now furious over her relatives but realistically speaking? We would
say that what they did in ordinary life was not an act of particular violation, the woman has died
and it is normal that they took their body and buried her, but not for him and not from his point
of view. What does this indicate? We have again a more explicit indication that this was more
than love in an obsessive sense; it was an obsessive kind of love, he longed for her closeness
even beyond the grave and he cannot cope with the thought that they are separated even if she’s
dead; there’s almost this obsessive, perverse almost wish to have her dead body at all times next
to him. They shot her up in a sepulcher – he is furious about the fact that she is physically
separated from him because she is in tomb; this is again something very obsessive.
Can you think of any other literary parallel in English or British literature in which there is
almost identical motif of a lover who is furious with everybody else but also with her beyond
grave? This is a very romantic, very gothic element; it is a very obsessive and almost perverse
kind of love.
- Maybe Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff was very obsessive and very angry.
There is this passage in the Wuthering Heights when she dies; she was already married to another
man and he... Can you remember what happened there? She’s about to be buried so she was dead
already; almost identical situation; he rages, he comes to the house where she lived with her
husband; she is now dead and he cannot accept the fact that she’s now going to be buried and
physically separated form him. Then he tries to dig the earth on her grave. This is very romantic
on the one hand, and on the other hand something really obsessive.

Stanza 4
- We have a lot of repetition here, again angles and the two of them.
He repeats the same information more or less. But he wants to emphasize the envy of angles;
again we have this romantic idea of the conspiracy of entire universe against the two of them.
- And here when he says “Yes! – that was the reason…” he sounds like a madman. It seems like
he really wanted to emphasize that his happened because the angels envied them, that that was
the reason why she died. He also says “…as all men know…” like that was the fact, something
unquestionable.
It was unquestionable for him and you had no other choice, but you had to believe him. He is
really obsessed about this story but also about telling the story and repeating the basic
information over and over again. Even there through this repetition we can see his obsession.
- Yes, that’s why I said that he looks like a madman because of this repetition. For the first time
he mentions that chilling actually killed his Annabel Lee.
Here he seems like a person almost obsessed with the need, with the urge to keep on telling the
story over and over again. This reminds me of another great romantic poem by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner the context is different but he repeats the story of
how he had killed the albatross etc.
- I just wanted to say that maybe the death of Annabel Lee was a punishment for him because he
loved a mortal more than he loved god.
That might be another interpretation. He is protesting against the universe. He is not capable of
trying to think because that would mean that he is capable of thinking rationally. What he is
focused on is simply that he had her and that he wants her and that it is the consequence of a
terrible injustice of the evil existent in the universe.

Stanza 5
In the last stanza he says: “But our love it was stronger by far than the love of those who were
older than we –“ here he again uses the similar image that we already had in the third stanza with
the introduction of her highborn kinsmen. Here he again introduces the contrast between them
who loved each other and all the others who represent the corruption and injustice and evil of the
world. So this is a very romantic contrast between us and all of them from angels down to her
relatives and just everybody else, and older generation especially. This idea of young generation,
you had something like an emerging new cult in this poem by Edgar Allan Poe. He says that
their love was stronger than the love of those who were older than them; not only is here a
contrast but what else is he saying when he compares them and the older ones? - That the older
ones are not capable of such a pure and intense love.
“Of many far wiser than we –“ what about this part? You have love and you have wisdom; what
do you think about that?
- Maybe the emotional and the rational side of humanity. And he maybe thought that those older
people would immediately be wiser and they don’t know what kind of love the two of them have.
When he says that they were wiser this means that they were more rational, they were colder,
they were more pragmatic. He contrasts the emotionality of youth, the ability of youth to love in
such a way (very romantic theme). Younger people, especially when they fall in love for the first
time they think that that is going to last forever and they hate the older people telling them that
that maybe won’t last. Something like that happened here. So no matter that they were wiser they
were stupid.
“And neither the angles in the heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever
dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.” What about that part?
- Basically, he says no matter how strong that power is it can never separate them.
Again, like in the Wuthering Heights, you have a typical romantic and gothic theme of love
beyond grave. One lover has died and the other roams on this world but they are still inseparable.
Another theme: remember the excerpts from the Wuthering Heights when Cathy appears on the
window, she revisits him constantly, haunting the lover that had remained alive.
What about Poe’s image of the universe? It is again a very bleak and dark worldview of his
because he says: “neither the angles in heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea…”.
What is interesting of this putting side by side the image of angles and the image of demons? For
him they are equally capable of envy and jealousy. For him there is no fundamental difference in
the universe between good angles and bad demons; for him they are all evil in a way. Universe is
still evil and that evil lurks everywhere. Whatever is beautiful, life-giving or life-promising will
inevitably be destroyed.
In the spiritual level they will forever remain bonded to each other.

Stanza 6
“For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE”
“And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side of my darling – my darling – my life and my
bride, in her sepulcher there by the sea – in her tomb by the sounding sea.”
Romantic obsession
- Here he speaks in present tense so he speaks about something that he feels now.
His story has come to an end (the story which he retold in retrospect) and now he reaches the
present moment.
- “And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes…” he thinks of her when he looks at the
stars, he feels that the stars as her eyes are looking at him.
So every nightfall, every time the night comes and the stars appear in heaven this remind him of
her. Not only that he compares the brightness or the beauty of her eyes to the stars but also it
underlines the pain, this everlasting pain because she comes back to him in his mind as a
memory. So everything in the physical world practically is a constant reminder of his lost, of
how he had her and he lost her. Every arrival of the night is a torment to him because the stars
remind him of nothing else, he doesn’t see the stars but in the stars he sees her eyes.
- He said that he lies by her side; this means that he is half alive and half dead.
What is a gothic element here? The gothic element is that he goes into her tomb and lies next to
her; and the setting is also typically gothic because it always takes place at night time, when the
night falls then all these things happen. You have imagery of the moon and the stars, night which
is something very romantic and very gothic. During the night he is being reunited with her, it’s
almost in a vampire-like manner. During the night they are reunited in so far as he descends into
her tomb to spend the night with her and then he leaves in the morning.
- Things are getting more and more deranged, his mind is getting more and more deranged. At
the beginning we have a mild obsession, in the beginning he s rather calm in comparison to the
ending of the poem. Then he is getting even more deranged blaming the heaven, blaming her
family, blaming everyone and everything (talking about the conspiracy of the universe) and
finally he is protesting, he is gone completely mad.
He calls her his darling twice to emphasize; she is dead but he calls her his lover and bride.
- The word bride implies that he will never try to find anybody else.
He is simply not interested in anyone else and he’s probably just waiting for the moment of his
own death when they would probably be finally and eternally united; he would no longer have to
pay visits to her tomb at night. The implication is that he is longing for the moment of death, he
probably wishes death for himself because in that way they would be joined again (very
romantic).
What about the very last two lines where he again mentions sepulcher and tomb. Those are the
synonyms and we have a similar syntactic structure, repetition. “In her sepulcher there by the sea
in her tomb by the sounding sea” this is not accidentally done. What do you think why did Poe
write this in this was because he amplifies this image of the grave through use of synonyms,
through use of parallel syntactic structures and through the evocation of the image of the sea. If
you have a grave which is next to the shore, next to the sea. The sea produces sounds of the
waves for example, crushing against the cliff. So maybe he wanted to emphasize or introduce the
reader to a particular tone and atmosphere. He wanted to end the poem with this image of a
solitary tomb somewhere near the sea where the waves are crushing and to somehow amplify the
feeling of sadness or sorrow. This is an image of sadness, loneliness, the image of a tomb with
the sounds coming from the sea, there is nobody there just the tomb and the person in it who is
eternally silent and the only sounds breaking this silence are these crushing against the cliffs near
the tomb.