Loss As Expressed in Edgar Allen Poe’s Annabel Lee
The death of Edgar Allen Poe’s young bride prompted a wealth of bitter resentment in the writer. While this is evidenced in many of his works, nowhere is his antipathy more explicit than in the poem, “Annabel Lee”.
It is apparent from reading lines such as “the winds came out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee” that Poe feels that he is somehow cursed and that the heavens stole his joy because the angels’ own discontent caused them to delight in destroying the happiness of others. This is further confirmed, and perhaps most overtly so, by the line, “The Angels, half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me”.
For Poe, reality and fantasy seem to be intrinsically entwined (Postema, 1991). He seems to view the scenario of jealous angels stealing his love away as incontrovertible fact, rather than simply a manifestation of his rage, which it so obviously is. When he writes, “For the moon never beams without giving me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee”, he seems to be aware of the distinction between fantasy and reality, however this is his only lucid moment.
In addition to its alluring content, the language of the poem also serves to immerse the reader into Poe's fantasy-like realm of the transcendent love he shared with his child bride. Throughout the poem, Poe writes primarily with “a combination of iambic and anapestic feet, alternating between tetrameter and trimeter”. (Carlson, 1987)
The word "chilling," in both places it is used, lines fifteen and twenty-five, retains a jarring meter. This, along with the capitalization of ANNABEL LEE, is done most probably to ensure that the death of Poe's loved one disturbs the rhythm of the poem and startles...
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...ear especially stark contrast to the simplistic settings and language used to describe the author’s perspective of his surroundings.
Edgar Allen Poe was a man beleaguered with personal tragedy and besieged by the more unpleasant experiences of life. His certainty that fate had dealt him a bad hand served to fuel his rage, his alcoholism and his entire mission of self-destruction. However it also served to inspire him to write some of the most thought provoking and emotionally provocative poetry in the history of literature.
WORKS CITED
Carlson, Eric W., ed. Critical Essays on Edgar A. Poe. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987
Postema, James. "Edgar A. Poe's Control of Readers: Formal Pressures in Poe's Dream Poems." Essays in Literature 18.1 (Spring 1991): 68-76.
Regan, Robert, ed. Poe; a Collection of Critical Essays . Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
Edgar Allan Poe's view on poetry is that all poems must be a "rhythmical creation of beauty". In his eyes, melancholy and sadness is beautful. He thinks that the death of a young beautiful woman is itself full of beauty. In both "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven", Poe writes about this so-called beauty.
Since 1972, the issues surrounding the rights of unwed birthfathers have provided America with a highly controversial and morally challenging topic for debate. Prior to 1972, these unwed fathers were given little or no involvement in their child’s adoption proceedings, but because of highly publicized adoption cases in which birthfathers have retained custody of their child many years after their adoption took place, state legislatures have been forced to review their adoption laws regarding birthfathers and create more concrete ones. The laws in Florida regarding birthfathers have changed dramatically over the past several years, with complicating, senseless laws being replaced with more rational and reliable ones. The newest laws, passed in 2003 regarding a Putative father registry provide the most stable and fair support for legal adoption proceedings.
First, social-work and mental-health experts have reached a consensus during the last decade that greater openness offers an array of benefits for adoptees—from ongoing information about family medical issues to fulfillment of their innate desire to know about their genetic histories—even if the expanded relationships prove difficult or uncomfortable for some of the participants (Verbrugge). An open adoption is when the natural mother and the adoptive family know the identity of each other and could obtain background or medical history from the biological parent. In an open adoption the parental rights of biological parents are terminated, as it is in a closed adoption, but an open adoptio...
For poets, it is essential that they write about what they know and what they feel, as the substance of what they are revealing will enhance their work and ultimately attract audiences. Edgar Allan Poe is one poet whose personal endeavours can be extracted from his poems. His works such as The Raven, Annabel-Lee and Ulalume are just a few of his most celebrated poems that reflect diverse aspects of Poe’s own life. Poe’s reoccurring themes of death in conjunction with love, the subconsciousness of self and ambiguity attracted audiences to become entranced in his work (Spark Notes, 2014). Adjacent to these intriguing themes is how Poe’s personal life was inexplicitly perceived in his poems, in particular The Raven.
New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son., 1884. xv-xxvi. EPUB file. Sova, Dawn B. "Poe, Edgar Allan.
The life of Edgar Allan Poe, was stuffed with tragedies that all affected his art. From the very start of his writing career, he adored writing poems for the ladies in his life. When he reached adulthood and came to the realization of how harsh life could be, his writing grew to be darker and more disturbing, possibly as a result of his intense experimenting with opium and alcohol. His stories continue to be some of the most frightening stories ever composed, because of this, some have considered this to be the reason behind these themes. Many historians and literature enthusiasts have presumed his volatile love life as the source while others have credited it to his substance abuse. The influence of his one-of-a-kind writing is more than likely a combination of both theories; but the main factor is the death of many of his loved ones and the abuse which he endured. This, not surprisingly, darkened his perspective considerably.
Ingram, John Henry. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1965.
In the Unites States, the first adoption law was passed in Massachusetts in 1851. This law called the 1851 Adoption of Children Act based adoptions on child welfare rather than on the benefits for adoptive parents. This law ensured judicial discretion of “fit and proper” parents. Another milestone for adoption came in 1868 when the Massachusetts Board of Stat...
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: The Modern Library 1992
During the 1960's and 1970's another monumental shift changed the views of adoption. With unwed mothers lessening and the legalization of abortion by the 1973 Roe v. Wade trial, the number of healthy, white infants adoptees dropped. Even though there wasn't that many white babies to be adopted, African-American babies swa...
During this time adoptions were done in a closed manner. Meaning that the information of the birth and adoptive parent(s)were kept strictly confidential by the agencies that facilitated the adoption. Birth parents would give non identifying information that would be given to the adoptive parents and later the adoptees if they wished, however nothing could easily allow the triad members to later locate each other without the assistance of the agency was released. The logic behind this was to protect the birth parents, more so the mother, usually from the societal shame of being unwed, giving her the freedom to put the past behind her and later have a family with legitimate children. Additionally, it gave adoptive family the reassurance that they would not have to have concerns of a birth parent resurfacing after many year causing upheaval in their lives, or that of the child they had raise, usually from birth. It is estimated that as of 1970 175,000 of these closed adoptions happened a year, well into the 1980’s. While conceptually this set up seemed ideal, it ignored the humanistic aspect of birth parents longing to know what came of their child, and it completely disregarded the adoptee rights to understand where they came from once they were able to understand the situation. Also it gave adoptive families no resources of understanding the nature of what may have affected their
The diction of “Annabel Lee” helps create the impression of a fairy tale-like love story. With words such as “maiden” (line 3), “kingdom” (line 8), “beautiful” (line 16), “high-born kinsmen” (line 17), Poe paints a picture of a whimsical, fantastic love story when, in reality, Annabel Lee dies in her girlhood. This is wherein lies the irony: the glamorization of the persona’s love of Annabel Lee
Shulman, Robert. Poe and the Powers of the Mind. Vol. 37. N.p.: The John Hopkins
Edgar Allan Poe’s 1849 poem, “Annabel Lee”, explores the common themes of romance and death found in many of Poe’s works. The poem tells the story of a beautiful young maiden named Annabel Lee who resides by the sea. The maiden and the narrator of the poem are deeply in love, however the maiden falls ill and dies, leaving the narrator without his beloved Annabel Lee. Contrary to what many might expect from a poem by Poe and yet still depressing, the poem ends with the narrator accepting Annabel’s death and remains confident that they will forever be together despite her parting.
Poems have really intricate meanings that can be portrayed in many different ways. They can be used to express feelings and emotions towards someone or something. Poems can be about love, hate, nature, or anything in particular. The poem “Annabel Lee,” by Edgar Allan Poe is a romantic poem, written during the Romanticism period. The poem is about the narrator, a young man, who is dealing with the tragic loss of his fair maiden, whom he fell in love with at a young age. The love between the couple is described as very childlike and innocent. Their love for each other is extremely passionate, for that reason, the angels became jealous and killed Annabel Lee. Although his wife passed away, the narrator does not want to give up on their love and