Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee

Before I would start analyzing the poem itself, I would like to talk about the title first. The title is the name
of a person called Annabel Lee. Here at this point we don’t know much about her. Who is she? What kind of
feeling does the speaker has towards the girl? What is the connection between the two? I believe this girl
must be a significantly important person to the narrator since he wrote this poem directly to or of her.
Probably there is some kind of love between them, but at this point we don’t know whether it is a one-sided
love, a parental love or more like a desire he feels. In the following paragraphs I try to find an answer for
these questions.
Stylistically speaking, I believe there are two expressions that are extremely significant in this poem: the
repetition of “My beautiful Annabel Lee” and “Kingdom by the sea”. In the first one, I found interesting that he
always says “beautiful”. What does “beautiful” mean here? In my opinion, in this poem “beautiful” does not
only refer to her physical appearance, but also to her soul. He does not highlight her physical charming
points; he talks about her soul. I believe the reason he keeps repeating only this word is because that is the
only word that could describe her. She is a memory now, and probably the details of her existence were
faded during the time, there is nothing else to highlight in particular but the beauty she had entirely.
The second one, “Kingdom by the sea” is a little bit more complicated. I believe ‘kingdom” can mean either
something grand and enormous or something magical, a place that is achievable only by certain people. This
kingdom maybe refers to a place that belongs only to the boy and the girl, an imaginary playground of the
two. This kingdom can be found next to the sea, that strengthens the idea that this place is isolated to
everyone, nobody can find it or enter here except them. For me “Sea” also means something that is infinite.
Maybe it represents their love that is beyond death, it is infinite like the sea.
There is a very strange, smoothing yet melancholic tone in the poem. Strange, because the story he tells is
extremely tragic but the tone remains calm, maybe even a bit nostalgic. It gives us the impression that he
tells us a memory in a fabulous way. He uses words and expressions as kingdom and angels, because of
which I feel like this story is only a tale, but as the poem goes on, the story becomes more realistic.
The method he uses in order to achieve this impression is a shift in time. In the first three strophes he uses
past time, so he starts the poem as a childhood memory of a girl he loved. At this point it seems like the
story is finished, but in the second half of the last strophe he changes from past to present and admits that
he still visits the sepulchre of Annabel Lee. This means that even if the tragedy happened long ago, he is still
not over the loss, he is still in love with her. He says that even the moon and the stars never shine anymore
without making him think of her. He also uses expressions like “my bride” and “my life”. For me that means
that this girl meant the whole world for him and he calls her like that because he is referring to all the things
she could have become by his side.
I found incredibly beautiful the way he described the love between them. He highlights that although it
was a childhood love, this love was deeper than the one adults have and so strong that no power, not even
good and evil altogether could demolish it. This love was so beautiful that even the angels, who are above
human, were envying it and this is the reason they took her away. I like the way how he described this
event: he says that she was “bore away from him” and “shut up” in a sepulchre. I believe he used these
words to describe his own feelings- that he was not ready for that, maybe even tried to prevent this
separation, and that it was just unfair with the girl because she did not deserve it. This might be the reason
he later highlights that he never forgot her and still visits her combat, to show that their love is beyond
physical restrictions, it is the connection between two, inseparable souls, dead or alive.
In summary, I found that the girl was the love of the speaker and the poem is about her story and the love
between the two. The connection between them is the true love between two souls that is inseparable, nor
by human nature, nor by upper forces because it is a love not only between two people, but between two
souls.