Love is a force that brings people together and creates irreplaceable connections, while death takes those connections and tears them apart. Even though the two seem to be polar opposites, love and death are not always mutually exclusive. Edgar Allan Poe was a writer whose short stories and poems would combine love and death into “a reflection of the darker side of Romanticism” that portrayed death as nothing more than a temporary obstacle (Richards-Gustafson). Through his use of literary techniques in his poems “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume,” Edgar Allan Poe reveals that not even death is strong enough to destroy the love between two souls.
Falling in line with the recurring gothic tones of his writing, the death of young women in their prime
…show more content…
In both poems, the narrator is struggling to cope with the grief of their lost love, but in each poem, the narrator dealt with it differently. In “Annabel Lee,” the narrator accepted that she was dead, and spent his time reflecting on their love, and blaming the forces of life for taking her away from him. In “Ulalume,” the narrator was so lost in his brooding that he repressed the memory of his love, only remembering the importance of the date and the location once his soul led him there. Both of these poems touch on topics such as love and death, as did many more of Poe’s works, due to the fact that they were written when romanticism was widely popular in literature and the arts (Richards-Gustafson). “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume” are connected through their themes of a dead lover and the narrator’s soul feeling lost without its mate. While either of these poems could have been considered a result of his tragic childhood and unsteady life, the image of a young girl taken away from the narrator while she was still frozen in her prime makes it more likely that Virginia Eliza Clemm was used as a muse for his poetry and short stories. These themes and recurring subjects would not have been seamlessly woven into Poe’s writing without the use of the poetic and structural techniques that showed the connection between love, death, grief, and the lingering of the human …show more content…
“Edgar Allan Poe.” Critical Survey of Poetry: American Poets. Ed. Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman. 4th ed. Vol. 3. Salem Press, 1992. 1561-1569. Print.
Moore, Freddie. “Behind the Lit: Edgar Allan Poe Marries His 13-Year-Old Cousin.” The Airship, Black Balloon Publishing, 22 Sept. 2014, airshipdaily.com/blog/09222014-edgar-allan-poe-virginia-eliza-clemm.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Ulalume.” Poem: Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe, www.poetrynook.com/poem/ulalume.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Annabel Lee.” Poem: Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, www.poetrynook.com/poem/annabel-lee.
Richards-Gustafson, Flora. “Examples of Poe's Romanticism.” Examples of Poe's Romanticism | Education - Seattle PI, Hearst Seattle Media, LLC, education.seattlepi.com/examples-poes-romanticism-5298.html.
Wang, Bella. Chazelle, Damien ed. "Poe’s Poetry “Annabel Lee” Summary and Analysis". GradeSaver, 17 August 2009 Web. 9 April 2018.
White, Patrick J. “The Thing Needed: Hope and Despair in ‘Ulalume’,” Masques, Mysteries and Mastodons: A Poe Miscellany (2006), pp. 1-16
In "Annabel Lee", a young man is mourning the death of a beautiful young lady. Even though the woman had died quite some time ago, the man is still in melancholy. He misses her terribly and constantly thinks of how she was she was tragically taken from him by the angels who were jealous of their love, and by her family who didn't think the he himself was capable of bringing her to her final resting place. He loved Annabel Lee more than anyother human can love another. The following quote tells the reader how much he loves her and shows that he would do anything for her, even if that means sleeping by her tomb, each and every night. "And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling, my life and my bride, in her sepulchre there by the sea, in her tomb by the side of the sea."
Poe, Edgar Allan. Annabel Lee. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 691. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "Annabel Lee." Poetry Foundation. Ed. Poetry Foundation. Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
The Norton Anthology of American Literature (vol. 1). New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. p1204 - 1206. Jacobs, William. A. Jay. Edgar Allan Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe’s poems The Raven, And Annabel Lee Contrast in many different ways but i'll be highlighting three of them in this paper.The mood of these poems is sad because their true loves die in very different settings and how they handle the grief is different from one going totally insane to the other man being calm and almost a little light hearted about it.
The narrator talks about his bride in such a way were you know that their love they shared was special and pure. (lines 9) “we loved with a love that was more than love” and his love for her grew stronger with her death. As for one of his way of dealing with Annabel Lee’s death he let every single detail in life remind him of her. (lines 34-37 ) “For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams...and the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes/
This poem is about the narrator’s wife, who ends up dying young. In the poem Poe starts by saying “And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me” (Poe, 691). Later in the poem the narrator says “That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee” (Poe, 691). In this poem Poe expresses how women are beautiful figures by making the death of Annabel Lee seem so alluring. He takes such amazing experiences as a comparison to his 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” (Poe, 692). Although Annabel Lee dies in the poem, it doesn’t seem as sorrowful because of the beautiful imagery expressed in this poem. Some may say that this poem specifically relates to his wife Virginia because of the saying “I was a child and she was a child” (Poe, 691), as we know they married so young. He wanted to express his wife’s beauty through this poem, and by the narrator using the phrase “My beautiful Annabel Lee” four times in the poem it expresses how he looked at her, with such
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.
The “chill” that devastated Annabel Lee is the same death that sadly struck Virginia. The unconditional love between the narrator and Annabel is the very symbol of the love between Poe and Virginia--their love is so strong that it could easily pass through the barriers of
As the reading above indicates, Poe grieved continuously throughout his life for his sainted “Lenore”. He wrote numerous poems before and after the death of Virginia Clemm to her. “Annabel Lee” was actually written before the death of Virginia as a token of his undying love for her.
As a result of Poe’s endearment towards Annabel Lee, he channels his joys and sorrows of his love with Annabel through the use of personification, repetition, and imagery leaving the reader to feel the misery and depression of Poe’s life without Annabel by his side.
The loss of Edgar’s dear Virginia devastated him, his depression was so consuming that he went months without writing. After those months though, the only way he could express his feelings worthily was through poetry. Poe’s work Ulalume better expresses his feeling of pain and loss of his dear wife Virginia; while Annabel Lee (Annabel representing his wife) shows the deep love he felt for her during and after she died, and how much he cared for her, Ulalume dives deeper into the feelings that controlled him after his heartbreaking loss. Most of Annabel Lee talks about how much he loves Annabel even after she died; how everything reminds him of her, and how his love for her will never end.
The greatest and most outstanding poem to ever be heard by human ears is without question, “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe. A brief introduction to this famous literary piece is that it is a ballad that was published in 1849 by American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, and interestingly, right after his mysterious death. The poem illustrates the love between a young man and woman, Annabel Lee, who have the world against their love, but still stay together and prove can still be present after death, when Annabel Lee dies. “Annabel Lee” is the greatest poem to ever exist because of its historical aspect, it being very verbally appealing from its genius sound devices implemented, and its symbolism that assist in the reader visualising the setting and understanding
Hyperboles, metaphors, repetition, rhyme, meter, and imagery all shine brightly through Annabel Lee. “She lived with no other thought than to love and to be loved by me”(emphasis added). This short excerpt represents a hyperbole perfectly, as the exaggeration stresses the beauty and simplicity of their eternal love. The imagery used in this writing amplifies the graphic contrast of love and death, and inspires empathetic notions towards the author. Phrases included such as “the moon never beams,” “the stars never rise,” “all the night-tide i lay by the side,” and “kingdom by the sea,” brings descriptive images of the setting, and the loud passion felt by Poe.
However, the atmosphere of the poem changed when Annabel Lee died from a terrible disease. The tragedy resulted into a transition of the persona’s character from someone who was head over heels into a broken-hearted man by way of illustration from the sixth stanza, line 34 to 41.