Harvey Ramoso

Ms. Lucero
ENGL 1120-064
February 22nd, 2024

Primary Source: “Annabel Lee”

Lens: “Psychoanalytic”
Excerpts:
And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud,
chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away
from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me-Yes!- that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we-Of many far
wiser than we-And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

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; And so, all the night-
tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre
there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.
 Genre Analysis of Annabel Lee

What makes a poem, a poem? To answer that question is a poem called Annabel Lee by
Edgar Allan Poe. This poem was published in October 1849 and was one of the last poems Poe
wrote since he died the same year according to an article at Owlcation.com. In summary, the
poem is about the narrator losing their significant other named Annabel Lee and how they deal
with this loss. The length of the poem is short with six stanzas, but Poe is still able to express the
strong emotions that humans face when dealing with death. Now back to the original question of
what makes a poem, a poem. Well, when looking at the last four stanzas, Poe uses repetition,
rhyming, and allusion to make his work a poem. In addition, when looking through the poem
through a psychoanalytic lens, we can see that Poe describes the stages of grief.
To begin, let us look at stanza three which is where the death of Annabel Lee is brought
up. The poem states, “In this kingdom by the sea, / A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling / My
beautiful Annabel Lee” (Poe, lines 14-16). Looking at lines 14 and 16, we can see that the words
at the end of the lines, “sea” and “Lee” respectively, rhyme. This rhyming puts emphasis on the
strength of their love because it parallels the sea, a force of nature, and the lover. In addition, the
poem says, “So that her highborn kinsman came / And bore her away from me” (Poe, lines 17-
18). This is a use of allusion as highborn means people from heaven and heaven is an idea of
Christianity. Spacey’s article states, “...she was part of their family, a celestial, so they would
never be satisfied until she was back in the fold” (Analysis of Poem). This means that the
narrator’s love was taken away by the supernatural. To add, the use of repetition with the phrase
“In this kingdom by the sea” in the same stanza establishes the setting where the death occurred,
but also alludes to their past romantic life together, in a kingdom. Simultaneously, this is also the
moment where Annabel Lee died, and the narrator experiences the first stage of grief, shock. In
this stage, “The more sudden, tragic, and untimely the death, the more pronounced will be the
shock” (Flatt, pg. 1). So, there is shock as she died unexpectedly and oddly by an unforeseen
force, a cloudy chill. The next paragraph contains the same devices as this one and progresses to
the next stage of the grieving process.
Continuing to the fourth stanza, the protagonist gives reason as to why Annabel Lee was
taken away from him, leading to anger. The poem states, “The angels, not half so happy in
heaven, / Went envying her and me-” (Poe, lines 19-20). This states the allusion more
specifically and describes that the reason why Annabel Lee was killed is because of perceived
jealousy of their happiness. The article further supports this idea by saying, “And so exceptional
was this love between the two that the heavenly winged beings, the seraphs (strongly associated
with Christianity) wanted to possess her” (Spacey, Analysis of Poem). Just like in the previous
paragraph, the phrase “In this kingdom by the sea” is again repeated to give importance to the
place, both life and death. Poe states, “Chilling and Killing my Annabel Lee” (Line 24). The
rhyming of chilling and killing in this line makes Annabel’s death more devastating and harsher.
He is experiencing the next part of the grieving stage, which is anger. During this stage, “one is
angry at the doctors, nurses, the hospital, the minister, or at God” (Flatt, pg. 2). In the case of this
poem, the protagonist blames supernatural forces on the death to relieve his shock. When
progressing to the next stanza, the same elements are present, and the process continues.
Moving on to the fifth stanza, the protagonist begins to feel sad about his loss. Poe says,
“But our love it was stronger by far than the love / Of those who were older than we- / Of many
far wiser than we-” (lines 25-27). The repetition of the sentence starter “Of” describes
experienced love and how the protagonist believes that their love was stronger than those
instances, which makes the loss sound more devastating. Moreover, the rhyming of the long e
sound with “we” illustrates how strong their connection is as a unit. The poem reads, “And
neither the angels in heaven above, / Nor the demons down under the sea, / Can ever dissever my
soul from the soul / Of the beautiful Annabel Lee” (lines 28-31) These lines add to the allusion
by adding demons, another part of Christianity, and it shows how no supernatural force can ever
take away the love that the protagonist felt for Annabel. The next step of the grieving process the
protagonist faces is withdrawal. In this stage, “There may be a feeling of dejection,” (Flatt, 2)
which is apparent in the narrator as he is sad because he believes that the love he felt was very
strong, and he questions why something would take that feeling away. Going into the final stanza
of the poem, the same devices (rhyming, allusion, repetition) are still used, and he finishes the
grieving process.
At the end of the poem, the sixth stanza, the narrator goes through depression, coping,
and then acceptance. The poem reads, “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” (Poe, lines 32-35). This sadness shows he is in the depressed part of
grieving as everything is melancholic without her. There is the restating of the phrase “Of the
beautiful Annabel Lee” in lines 33 and 35 instead of “My beautiful Annabel Lee” like in the past
stanzas. This repetition change shows how he acknowledged possession of Annabel Lee as
“My”, and has now moved onto “Of the”, which is him coping that she is no longer truly his.
Next, not every word has a rhyming counterpart like dreams and eyes, and this could be
purposeful. The article states about these words, “Poetically, they perhaps represent the idea of
loss, of being alone in all that familiarity” (Spacey, Analysis of Poem). If this is the case, then
not purposefully using rhyme all throughout a poem could make a poem even more interesting to
unpack. Poe says, “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side / Of my darling- my darling-
my life and my bride, / In the sepulchre there by the sea” (lines 36-38). The holy connotation of
the word sepulchre shows that the protagonist has respect for the loved one like a god.
Furthermore, these lines show that the speaker has reached the acceptance stage where, “One
adjusts to the life situation, overcomes the negative, accepts the reality, and goes on with life”
(Flatt, pg. 4). They prove this through adapting to the situation by lying next to her tomb to still
somehow be with her and put his grief and love to rest. Through these four stanzas, it shows how
the character progresses and how various devices are used to accomplish that.
As a result, Poe uses rhyming, allusion, and repetition to further develop ideas about how
the brain processes the loss of a loved one, in a more cathartic style of poetry. Having these
strategies helps give structure and control to how a poem functions. What is significant about
poems is that though they may be short, there is still a lot of opportunity to dig deep. With just
those three aspects, we were able to find emotional charge, character development, and
connections to the real world. As such, I interpreted this poem with the modern perception of
going through the stages of the grieving process, which makes this poem timeless and relatable.
This felt just as informative as any other form of literature. So, do not forget to look deeper as
there is more than meets the eye.

Reflection
I picked the poem Annabel Lee because it was shorter and that allowed me to look at every line
deeper. In addition, I picked the last four stanzas because that included the climax, the falling
action, and the resolution which are the parts of the story where the tone of the poem changed,
and the character got the most development. Also, I wanted to mention that when I interpreted
the poem at first, I didn’t know the real-life context of the author, with his own love life. My past
experiences with interpreting poems never seem to stem that obviously from the real-life author.
I would say that my introduction is strong because it is engaging and informative. Another
strength would be the structure of my analysis as every stanza gets its own body paragraph. On
the other hand, the conclusion is the weakest because it was difficult trying not to regurgitate
information that I already previously stated. An additional weakness would be word variation
because it is hard to find synonyms for words like love and the literary devices without losing
meaning. This genre analysis taught me that authors use various stylistic devices to get their
message across while also making it engaging to read. For the future, genre analysis to me is
looking deeper at text whether it be poems or news.
 Works Cited

Flatt, Bill. “Some Stages of Grief.” Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 26, no. 2, 1987, pp.
143–48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27505917. Accessed 12 Feb. 2024.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Annabel Lee.” Accessed 12 Feb. 2024.
Spacey, Andrew. “Analysis of Poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe.” Owlcation,

Owlcation, 6 Oct. 2017, owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Annabel-Lee-by-

Edgar-Allan-Poe. Accessed 12 Feb. 2024.