Summer Blog Post 1: Poetry for Pleasure

‘Annabell Lee’ By Edgar Allan Poe

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.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

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.

Amidst the luscious green shrubs of Oxford, I found poetry. I have always been enthralled by poetry. As finite humans we live in a world that is infinite, we spend our lives attempting to adapt to the world in which we live yet we fail, for we are finite beings that can never become infinite. This has left us feeling empty, this has caused us to spend a life in which we attempt to fill our innate emptiness, yet we fail and we die unsatisfied. We create what is infinite to fill our emptiness. Poetry is our creation: poetry is infinite. Poetry can be read and re-read a hundred times over, yet the reader will never reach a conclusion. We create poetry to emulate the life we want to live and our relationship with poetry reflects our lives so accurately.

This summer I have gained an appreciation for Edgar Allan Po’s poem ‘Annabel Lee’. At face value, I found that “A Romantic image of a beautiful woman who has died too suddenly in the flush of youth” was the perfect way to capture the essence of this poem in a sentence. I was wrong. This poem is about what is physically tangible and what is intangible. This poem explores the blurred border between what is finite and what is infinite.

This poem celebrates child like emotions in a manner consistent with the ideals of the romantic era. Romantics of the 18^th and the 19^th century viewed childhood as the purest stage of life that was inevitably corrupted by adulthood. This poem reveals that childhood love is the purest; it is real despite being dismissed by society. It is wholly accepted by nature. Society is the finite concept that is enforced upon nature, an infinite concept. Childhood love is portrayed as the purest form of love: the eternal and infinite love.  In his poem, Poe creates a hazy romantic atmosphere that revolves around a Kingdom. However, he disrupts this image later on as he creates a disturbing atmosphere, the most disturbing atmosphere known to human kind: death. The “sepulture by the sea” filled the air with an eerie feeling of emptiness in the physical world and a feeling of overload in the intangible world of emotion. Soon the readers begin to associate the city in the sea with death and decay, further fueling the melancholic mood. The nostalgic tone and the gothic background serve to inculcate the image of eternal love that outlasts the intangible spiritual jealousy and the tangible barrier of death. Although Annabell Lee has died the narrator sees a spark in her eyes that resembles life, symbolizing a promise that they will meet again in the future. The potent refrain phrases in this poem are: “Kingdom by the sea” and “Annabell Lee”. The repetition of “Kingdom by the sea” sets the setting and creates a romantic mood. The repetition of “Annabell Lee” reveals to the reader how much the narrator is consumed by his lover. Poe stresses the feeling of fulfillment he felt from this love, it is evident through phrases such as “And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.” Or “but we loved with a love that was more than love.” Evidently, Poe is constantly exploring the romantic philosophy of infinity and fulfillment.

The tone of the poem was dynamic shifting from love and happiness, to loss and anger and finally to peace and serenity.  The stanzas of the poem were irregular in length and structure. Rhyme emphasizes words such as: Lee, me, sea, as Poe wanted to enforce the linked nature between these concepts which gave the poem rhythm. This peaceful musical rhythm reflects the overall musicality of the poem.

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;