Introductory Synopsis
Annabel Lee is widely known to be the final completed work of poetry by prominent American writer, Edgar Allen Poe. The narrative description of the elegy expresses the narrator’s undying love for ‘Annabel Lee’ – detailing a love which had originated many a year ago in the unidentified ‘kingdom by the sea’. As the poem tells, though they were youthful, their love for each other had been set alight with such passion that the angels had become envious. It is for this reason, the storyteller believes, that the angels had in fact caused her death. Nevertheless, their adoration for each other goes far beyond existence, and the narrator deems that their souls are entangled with each other for eternity.
Themes
The predominant themes associated with Annabel Lee are love, loss and death. As noted in the previous section, both characters were young when they had fallen in love; and, it would appear that Annabel Lee was taken away from the narrator unnaturally. The poem declares, “I was a child and she was a child”. This informs the reader that they were young at the beginning, but that they were also in love with each other for quite some time after that. When Annabel had passed, his feelings for her had grown so strong, that he too, had died with her. The narrator exclaims that he could not stand to live in a world without her, and that he had mourned her death until his own passing.
Perhaps the most effective mechanism regarding the themes of love and death within the poem is the fact that Poe doesn’t ‘sugar coat’ the truth behind them. He contextualizes both love and death with a pragmatic approach, digging deep within and articulating the precarious parts of each emotion. As a whole, the work demonstrates how love has the ability to trap oneself inside an alternate state of mind, creating a feeling of torment and eventual suffering. Furthermore, the poem portrays neither a positive nor a negative representation of love – it is effective in creating an accurate depiction of how love and death, while being at the opposite ends of the scale, can sometimes be so close in terms of time. Even so, the work also recognizes that on occasion, death can make one realise the very true nature of love. After all, we don’t usually appreciate or comprehend what we have until it is gone.
Mood
The mood of this particular poem ties in with the themes associated with it. With love, comes pure adoration, and with death comes the feelings of sorrow, loss and anguish. However, due to the fact that it resembles a poetic elegy in terms of its form and content, this creates a mood that can simply be described as elegiac. Through the grief-stricken remembrance that the narrator depicts of his lost love, he conjures up a feeling of sadness, which in turn creates a mood throughout the poem which could be considered as extremely melancholy. Yet, it also contains instances where it appears that he is happy within himself, realizing that he will someday see her again – in death.
Generally, through the development of these moods, it could also be considered that the narrator feels as though he is ready to die, and that the poem is his last celebration of the love that they shared during their time together; before they meet again in heaven. Interestingly, it would be important to note that Poe had completed this work soon after the death of his wife. He created a fantasy-like poem set in the ‘kingdom by the sea’. So, in his mind, though the main feeling of the work would be considered depressing, it seems as though he may have written it in order to enhance his image as a romanticist. This assumption is furthered with the fact that it is written in a fairy-tale type of style, and the mood reflected from this creates a mysterious tone within the work.
Point of View
The text is told from a first-person perspective – and reflectively by the narrator. Poe wrote a broad depiction to portray his feelings for a woman (namely his dead wife). He uses the work as a means to communicate the impressions he had of her, and the hurt that he had felt upon her death. As an example, each time he sees the moon with the stars, he is reminded of the love he feels for her; and he insinuates that he is in fact ready to die, so that he can be with her once more.
Fitting within the genre of romanticism, the text is written with a tone that reflects medievalism, giving it the voice to make it sound like it is set within a fairy tale realm (i.e. the kingdom by the sea). The diction of the work emphasizes the narrator’s argument as he produces an illustration for the reader of clarity and virtue. For example, in lines three and five, he addresses his love as a “maiden”, rather than as a “woman”. This aspect, coupled together with the use of literary devices, gives the poem its unique point of view. The alliteration of the “H’s” in the line “half so happy in heaven” creates a callous resonance almost that of disdain, as both the words and imagery of the narrator, and the voice of the reader, looks down upon the angels for their covetousness.
In conclusion, Poe’s reflective elegy connects notions of romanticism with the ideals of nature, arguing that they are not even influenced by each other at all. By giving the impression that the characters within the poem have no other thought than to cherish each other, Poe has created a timeless impression of love and death that can distinctly resonate for many generations to come.