Comparing Poe's Annabel Lee And The Raven

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Known for his macabre and ghastly tales, short stories, and poems, Edgar Allan Poe is a well-renowned American author, editor, and abrasive literary critic of the early 1800s (Edgar Allan Poe Biography). On the date of January 19th 1809, Elizabeth and David Poe welcomed their second child into the world, Edgar Poe. A year after Edgar was born his father, David, abandoned his family and left Elizabeth to raise three children. Fast forward another year and Elizabeth Poe dies in the Richmond Theatre fire on December 11th 1811. With the loss of his parents, Edgar Poe was taken in by a foster family and moved in with the Allan family in Richmond, Virginia. The Allan family including the recently adopted Edgar Allan Poe, formerly known as Edgar …show more content…

Although these are two different poems by Edgar Allan Poe, they are both very similar in that they surround a beloved women. I chose to analysis “Annabel Lee” because there is nothing like a first love, when the emotions are fresh and stronger than ever. This huge rush of emotions are quite difficult to put into words, but Edgar Allan Poe is capable of capturing the feeling of love into his poem. When I delved into researching this poem, I realized that Poe wrote this poem after the death of his beloved wife, Virginia Clemm. Most people, I included, considered this poem to be a romantic ballad in honor of his deceased wife. In “Annabel Lee,” Poe allows his audience to understand just how deep the love is for Annabel and how his love will last forever, not even death will deter his love for Annabel. I love this poem because of the theme of eternal love, regardless of the obsessiveness. By using loaded language, Poe allows his audience to feel the love and anguish that torments the narrator. He uses similar loaded language in “The Raven.” I chose the raven because I love the how much feeling Poe is able to convey in his poem. In the poem “The Raven,” the narrator is tormented by the death of his beloved Lenore and he is trying to distract himself from remembering her by reading a book. This is a very different approach to the narrator in “Annabel Lee” who refused to let the death of his love separate him from her and chose to sleep by her tomb. Regardless, the narrator in “The Raven” is tormented and the raven that approaches him feeds into the narrator, causing him to become maniac in his forlorn state. The reason for his unstable state of mind is because of the death of his beloved Lenore. I chose these two poems because of how they are focusing on the death of a beloved and two different approaches on how the narrator

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