Poetry Edgar Allan Poe-`Annabel Lee` Lesson 8

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Symbols Of Love And Death In `Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe was known for writing poems and stories with a dominant central theme of death , and `Annabel Lee ' is no exception . Scholars critics , and people who love his work generally believe that the poem was written in reference to Poe 's deceased wife , Virginia Clemm , who died of tuberculosis before even reaching full womanhood . This morbid poem is full of symbols about love and death - two

themes with equal importance and magnitude (even the Bible itself states that love is as strong as death . The poem Annabel Lee presents these two equally strong themes , beautifully interwoven in symbolism

While many biographers conclude that Poe 's wife was the real Annabel Lee , it is also possible that she was a fictional character . Annabel Lee was the main figure being spoken of in the poem , but she could also be considered as a symbol of a rare , pure and tender love . There was something about her that evokes innocence , purity and childlikeness (characteristics that Virginia Clemm possibly had . It is indeed strange that Poe , an orphan and drunkard who had experienced so much cruelty from life , should marry a thirteen year old sickly girl Perhaps , in his mind , there was an undying ideal , a longing to find tenderness and innocence in a woman and become united with her . This ideal notion was symbolized by Annabel Lee , and if she was indeed Virginia Clemm , we can say that Clemm was the only true love that Poe ever had

In the first line of the poem , we can read , it was many and many a year ago , in a kingdom by the sea . The sea here was used to represent the speaker 's memory . The entire phrase suggests that Annabel Lee 's death occurred a very long time ago , but the sea speaks of reminiscence and an undying memory of love . This particular pattern was repeated in the succeeding stanzas , where each time the kingdom by the sea ' was mentioned , there was also a mention of things which belonged to a distant past . Poe wrote in the second stanza , I was a child and she was a child , in this kingdom by the sea . At the time this poem was written , Poe cannot be considered a child , as he was way past his early twenties . Clearly , he was simply using the word `sea ' as a vehicle to illustrate unfading memory of a loved one which cannot be erased by time . He seems to be implying that the memory of love he had for his woman cannot be erased even after the pain of loss and death . Thus at the end of the poem , we can find him staying beside the dead girl 's sepulchre by the sea

The poem suggests that the speaker 's love for Annabel Lee was of such divine and everlasting nature that...