AN N ABEL LEE

1849
 SUMMARY
• Long ago, "in a kingdom by the sea," lived Annabel
Lee, who loved the narrator.
• Both she and the narrator were children but knew
love more powerful than that of the angels, who
envied them.
• A wind chilled and killed Annabel, but their love was
too strong to be defeated by angels or demons.
• The narrator is reminded of Annabel Lee by
everything, including the moon and the stars, and at
night, he lies by her tomb by the sea.
 SETTING
• Time: many and many years ago
• Place: a fictional kingdom along the ocean shore.
• It is a beautiful, land of enchantment—a paradise
on earth—where he and Annabel Lee fell in love
as adolescents.
• *Every day they strolled the beaches, hand in
hand, in gentle breezes while the sun went down
and the tide rushed in*
 CHARACTER
• Narrator: A man of deep sensibility who
extolls a young maiden with whom he fell
deeply in love.
• Annabel Lee: Beautiful young maiden
loved by the poet. She was of noble birth,
as Line 17 of Stanza 1 suggests when it
says she had “highborn” relatives.
Annabel Lee probably represents Poe's
wife, who died at a young age.
 CHARACTER
• Seraphs: Members of the highest order of
angels around the throne of God. According to
the Bible, they each had three pairs of wings.
In the poem, the seraphs are so envious of the
love between the narrator and Annabel Lee
that they cause Annabel’s death.
• Relative of Annabel Lee: A “highborn
kinsman” (Line 17, Stanza 3) who carries away
and entombs her body.
 THEME
Eternal love
• The love between the narrator and Annabel Lee
is so strong and beautiful and pure
Seraphs envy it.
Attempt to kill this love by sending a chilling
wind that kills Annabel Lee.
 However, the love remains alive—eternal—
because the souls of the lovers remain united.
• Note: The death of a beautiful woman is a common
theme in Poe’s writing.
 THEME
Eternal love
• Romeo and Juliet Motif: the narrator and
Annabel Lee are both very young when they
fall deeply in love.
• In addition, like Shakespeare’s “star-crossed”
lovers, Poe’s lovers become victims of forces
beyond their control.
• The narrator and Annabel Lee—like Romeo
and Juliet—experience a love beyond the
understanding of older persons.
 FORMAT
"Annabel Lee" consists of:
• six stanzas: three with 6 lines, one with
7 lines, and two with 8 lines, with
different rhyme scheme.
• Though it is not technically a ballad, Poe
referred to it as one. Like a ballad, the
poem uses repetition of words and
phrases purposely to create its mournful
effect
 FORMAT
Rhyme scheme:
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
 FORMAT
Rhyme scheme:
1. ABABCB
2. ABCBDB
3. ABCBDBEB
4. ABCBDB
5. ABBABCB
6. ABCBDDBB
• 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;
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 sounding sea.
 FORMAT

Rhyme, Rhythm, Repetition:

Poe uses three R’s—rhyme, rhythm,
and repetition—in “Annabel Lee” to
create a harmony of sounds.
 FORMAT
Rhyme, Rhythm, Repetition:
• Rhyme and Repetition
Throughout the poem, Poe repeats the sound of /i:/.
• In the first stanza, Line 2 ends with sea, Line 4 with Lee,
and Line 6 with me. Stanzas 2 and 3 repeat the sea, Lee,
me pattern. Stanza 4 alters the pattern to me, sea, and
Lee. Stanza 5 uses we, we, sea, and Lee; the last stanza
uses Lee, Lee, sea, and sea.
• Internal rhyme: in the last line of Stanza 4
• “Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.”
 FORMAT
Rhyme, Rhythm, Repetition:
• Rhythm and Repetition
Repetitive key phrases— e.g. in this kingdom by the
sea, my Annabel Lee (or my beautiful Annabel Lee)
 to create haunting refrains.
• Repetitive words or word patterns within a single
line, as in (1) many and many a year ago, (2) we
loved with a love that was more than love, and (3)
my darling—my darling;
• repetition of consonant and vowel sounds.
 STANZA SUMMARY
• 1st Stanza:
Years ago in a city by the sea lived a lovely woman
named Annabel Lee whom was in love with the
speaker.
• 2nd Stanza:
They were both young but they both were deeply in
love with each other. The angels even wished to have
their love.
• 3rd Stanza:
He says that the angels envying them is why she died.
 STANZA SUMMARY
• 4th Stanza:
He repeats saying that the angels envying them is
why she died from the cold wind.
• 5th Stanza:
Nothing can take away his love for Annabel Lee.
• 6th Stanza:
He dreams of his wife and still sees her beauty in
the stars and even sleeps next to her inside her
tomb.
 ANALYSIS
1
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea, • begins exactly like a fairy
That a maiden there lived whom tale.
you may know • the sea and this old
By the name of Annabel Lee; kingdom are big images in
And this maiden she lived with no the poem.
other thought • a "maiden,"  young (and
Than to love and be loved by me. probably attractive); fairy-
tale feel.
*Notice the recurrence of the m, n, • the key fact of this poem,
l, and b sounds (alliteration). which is that he and
Annabel Lee were in love.
 ANALYSIS
2 • both the author and
I was a child and she was a child, Annabel Lee were
young when this
In this kingdom by the sea; happened.
But we loved with a love that • This love was so
was more than love— amazingly strong
I and my Annabel Lee; that the "seraphs" in
With a love that the winged heaven noticed
seraphs of heaven them.
Coveted her and me.  first hint that
things might not turn
out well.
Coveted: envied, resented
 ANALYSIS
3 • The speaker blames
And this was the reason that, long ago, the terrible turn of
In this kingdom by the sea,
events on the angels
who coveted him and
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
Annabel.
My beautiful Annabel Lee; • The jealousy of the
So that her highborn kinsman came angels was the reason
And bore her away from me, why a wind came
To shut her up in a sepulcher down from a cloud
In this kingdom by the sea. and ‘killed’ his lover.
 indirectly, the wind
was "chilling" to her.
 ANALYSIS
3
And this was the reason that, long ago,• the speaker tells us
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling how her "kinsman"
My beautiful Annabel Lee; (that just means a
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me, member of her family)
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
came and took her
away from him.
this was the reason: the seraphs' envy "highborn" means
long ago: these words echo many a year aristocratic, noble.
ago in Line 1, Stanza 1. the speaker's pain at
a cloud: Using these words instead of losing Annabel, and
the sky infuses foreboding and gloom
while symbolizing the dark envy of the
he feels she is being
seraphs. stolen from him.
 ANALYSIS
4
• The speaker directly
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me—
blames the angels for
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea) killing his girlfriend.
everyone ("all men")
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. who live in the kingdom
know that this is a fact.
out of a cloud by night: how traumatic the
 Use of this phrase emphasizes death was for him.
the dark envy of the angels and the speaker directly
their sneaky scheme (which mentions Annabel's
unfolds under the cover of night). death for the first time,
when he talks about the
wind "killing" her
 ANALYSIS
5  The love between
But our love it was stronger by far than the
love him and Annabel is
Of those who were older than we— stronger than any
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
other earthly love
Nor the demons down under the sea, and can survive the
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul efforts of the angels
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
and the demons to
Focuses on three worlds: (1) sabotage it.
earth - the realm of humans; (2)  Their love is
heaven - the realm of angels; eternal, and that
and (3) hell - the realm of nothing and no one
demons. can tear them apart.
*ever, dissever: internal rhyme
 ANALYSIS
This stanza starts with
6
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams a shift from the past
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; tense into the present
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; tense
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, letting us know
In the sepulcher there by the sea, what's happening
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
right now.
- Imagery of light: associating The descriptions of his
moonbeams with dreams about current life sound a bit
Annabel Lee and the radiance of creepy:
stars with her eyes.
 spends his nights
- In the sixth line, he uses a figure of
curled up next to
speech called anaphora when he
Annabel's dead body.
writes the word ‘my’ four times.