Literary Analysis of Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe.

This poem, like most of Poe’s great works is one of sorrow and of pain. The poem is also one of great tragedy and of loss, the loss of his Annabel Lee. He starts with explaining their deep passionate love, “We loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee. With a Love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me.” He explains how deep their love was, this proves how painful it is that he has lost her. To understand his poetry, you must first understand Poe. Poe had a short but tragic life. Failure after failure and the loss of multiple wives left Poe in a dystopian and depressed life. In the poem, he blames higher powers for his constant painful losses. He follows my previously quoted line with “And this is the reason that long ago, in this kingdom by the sea.” With that line, he shows that he is blaming the very seraphs of heaven because they are jealous of their love. The seraphs then proceed to kill his Annabel Lee by giving her a sort of cold (“Chilling and Killing my Annabel Lee”) because they’re so terribly jealous of the love they share. He then closes with the explanation of how he is still waiting for his love to return and how he hasn’t gotten over his terrible loss. He says “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling -my darling- my life and my bride, in the sepulcher there by the sea, in her tomb by the surrounding sea.” With that last verse he wraps up how he is still longing for his lost bride, his Annabel Lee.