Death's Effects on a Lover's Heart in Annabel Lee, a Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Creative Analyses

“But we loved with a love that was more than love-/I and my Annabel Lee” (lines 9-10) are the lines within Edgar Allen Poe’s Annabel Lee that create the synopsis of his poem. The poem creates a theming of how a man’s love never stops. However, through careful analysis, we can look at the poem from a new angle. In the poem Annabel Lee, Edgar Allen Poe is not writing about a man’s love for his girl, he however creates a theme of death’s toll on a lover’s heart through the tone and conclusion of the poem.

Edgar Allen Poe is a master at conveying messages through his text. Poe writes the Annabel Lee in a narrative form, but not as much as he did for his poem The Raven. Annabel Lee uses a rhyme to bring a reader closer to the poem, with a simplistic flow that catches the eye.

The pattern that he uses is an ABABCB-type rhyme scheme.

An example of this is in stanza one:

It was many and many a year ago, A

In a kingdom by the sea, B

That a maiden there lived whom you may know A

By the name of Annabel Lee; B

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Then to love and be loved by me. B

With this use of rhyme structure, Poe captivated the reader to nod along to every line of his poem which later lead to the conclusion of how much the narrator loved his lover.

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The tone of the poem, like the rhyme scheme, pulls on the readers’ minds. It wraps them around a fairytale story of a couple’s love that was stronger than imagined. Line 27-29, describes how their love was stronger than the average couple as well as the wiser couple. The poem’s tone tactfully allows the reader to believe in the forever love story of Annabel Lee.

However, this was not the main cause for the theme. The main theme of the poem is how death takes a toll on a lover’s heart. To see that main theme, it is very important to read the poem through once. In the conclusion, that is when the tone of the poem changes. “I lie down by the side/… In her tomb by the side of the sea” (lines 38-41) defines the man still longing for his lover even after death. It comes to the point that he lays at her grave because he believes that their love is forever. From this, the reader will question whether or not the poem is truly about love or an insane fantasy from a young man. From the end of the poem, we can read the poem again and analyze that the man is reliving his love life. He relives it through the poem as a proclamation of his love for the girl even though she was suddenly taken away from him. In that analysis, readers can make the connection that the theme is no longer a love story, but the effect death has on a lover’s heart.

The poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe was not written as a love story but rather written from the effect of a lover’s heart when another dies. The conclusion of the poem assesses that the lover is hurting which then reverts the entire poem to become a way for the narrator to relive his love for Annabel Lee.

Marcus

From a time once far from now,

In a village within the forest,

There lived a man that you may know,

My beloved Marcus; And he lived with a consistent thought,

That our love is strong and never lost.

Through the heavens I found, Our love put to a deathly rest,

My love lay at my tomb left side down,

My beloved Marcus;

He is forever the love of my life,

I’ve loved him from our very last kiss.

This poem was created in response to Annabel Lee. What I was going for was to create somewhat of a response that Annabel Lee gave to her lover. I made up a random name that would fit well to pose as the narrator’s persona. From there, I came back with a short poem of Annabel agreeing with all that was said about her and just resaying it in hen way. I also tried to incorporate the same rhyme scheme sequence of ABABCB.