Annabel Lee - Edgar Allan Poe 1849

 “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe

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• • "Annabel Lee" is the last poem composed by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost figures of American literature. It was written in 1849 and published not long after the author's death in the same year. It features a subject that appears frequently in Poe's writing: the death of a young, beautiful woman. The poem is narrated by Annabel Lee's lover, who forcefully rails against the people—and supernatural beings—who tried to get in the way of their love. Ultimately, the speaker claims that his bond with Annabel Lee was so strong that, even after her death, they are still together.

• “Annabel Lee” Summary

  • Many years ago, there was a kingdom by the sea. In this kingdom lived a young woman called Annabel Lee, whom the speaker suggests the reader might know. According to the narrator, Annabel Lee's only ever thought about the love between them.

    They were both children, but their love went well beyond what love can normally be. In fact, this love was so special that the angels of heaven were jealous and desirous of it.

    For that reason, back then, Annabel Lee was killed by wind from a cloud. She was then taken away by people the narrator calls "highborn kinsmen," who could be the angels or Annabel Lee's own family members. They enclosed her in a tomb, still within the same kingdom.

    Retrospectively, the speaker believes that the angels, unhappy in heaven and envious of the love between him and Annabel Lee, caused the wind that killed her.

    Their love, says the speaker, was more powerful than the love between people older and wiser than them. Furthermore, no angel from heaven or demon under the sea could ever separate his soul from Annabel Lee's.

    Every time the moon shines, it brings the speaker dreams of his beloved. When the stars rise, he can sense her sparkling eyes. Every night the speaker lies down alongside Annabel Lee—whom he calls his "life" and "bride"—in her tomb, with the sound of the sea coming from nearby.

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