Annabel Lee appears at first to contradict every other writing of Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was thought of as a demented, dark, cold man because of his writings during his time. Poe's most famous works, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, and The Tell-Tale Heart, are excellent examples of his typically dark and depressing style. Yet when you begin Annabel Lee, you see joy and happiness in Poe's tone.However, as the poem continues, you see the dark, mental aspect attached to his work. The thoughts of the moon shining every night to remind him of that which he had lost, of the stars never rising without her memory, and of the pitiful way he spends his nights by "her tomb by the sounding sea" s ...view middle of the document...
A seraph is a fiery angel who protects God's throne. In a way he was saying that their love was more perfect than God's. In the third stanza Poe describes just how Annabel Lee dies. The "chilling wind" which causes her sickness takes her from him. He says that her highborn kinsman carried her away from him. This is describing the pallbearers at her funeral who put her in a sepulchre. A sepulchre is a tomb, a burial place in which Poe's lover is locked up forever.In the fourth stanza Poe makes the angels seem cruel by repeating his claim that they envied the love between him and his beloved Annabel Lee. He also makes heaven seem not so exalted by saying that "the Angels , not half so happy in heaven." The envious angels, he insists, caused the wind to chill his bride and seize her life. However, in the next stanza, he contends that their love, stronger than the love of the older or wiser couples, can never be conquered.The fifth stanza brings clearness to the fact that Poe's love for his dead wife will never die. He writes that "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". By writing this he is defying the very will of anything that would dare to come between him and his love. When she died a part of him died with her.In the final stanza Poe writes that everything in this natural world reminds him of his love. He writes a few lines that make it so clear how his heart still longs for his wife. "For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee; and the stars never rise but I see 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 her sepulchre there by the sea- in her tomb by the sea". In this stanza the true feelings of Edgar Allen Poe are certainly obvious. He pours his whole soul into this single stanza. He cries out that his one true love is really gone. He will live the rest of his days staying and mourning the life and death of his dearest wife.This poem comes straight from Poe's life. ...
