Example Essay

The following essay is longer than yours needs to be and I wrote this one discussing mood, tone, and imagery, not theme. However, you can see a few moves here that might be helpful. Notice that when I use a larger quote, I block it off. Some of you are embedding very long quotes into your writing and when I say use a block quote, this is an example of that. Also, there is an introduction, body paragraphs supporting my claim, and textual evidence. Notice I have made use of those literary terms I've been teaching you. This is a small example of literary analysis. 

                 Moody, Mysterious, and the Macabre: Analyzing Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee"

         Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) was a poet whose work not only had a profound impact on America but also worldwide. His style usually focused on dark themes, including horror and mystery. His last poem, “Annabel Lee”, was a little different than his previous poems. While he still continued his themes of darkness and loss, it is largely a love poem, likely in memory of his wife, Virginia Clem. The poem is a fairy tale set in a “kingdom by the sea” with a beautiful maiden, and idealized youthful love. Their love is so perfect it catches the attention of the angels, who react in jealousy and take away his bride.  “Annabel Lee” is a perfect example of poetry in Mid-Century Romanticism, and Poe’s creative and masterful uses of literary devices creates a beautiful and classic poem. He uses rhyming repetition, iambic meter, and alliteration to give a romantic tone to the poem. He changes from telling the sad story to an audience to introspective dialogue further drawing in the reader as if they have become privy to his innermost thoughts. He breaks from the traditional love poem with his taboo behavior and dark anger towards heaven. He further shocks the audience with the horrific imagery of “dissever my soul” and the confession that he lies by the side of his dead wife every night. These literary devices blur the lines of romanticism and darkness. 

Poe’s use of rhyming repetition, iambic meter, and alliteration set the romantic mood of the poem. The poem opens up by taking us back in time to a kingdom by the sea with the beautiful Annabel Lee, who “lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.” Poe uses a rhyming repetition of the words, “sea,” “Lee,” and “me” throughout the entire poem, adding an almost melodic tone to the iambic meter. The meter remains iambic, with the stress on the second syllable, but the focus on the “ee” ending lines causes a natural pause in the rhythm. The effect is almost like a skipping heartbeat. 

The narrator’s focus in the first half of the poem is on the audience. He tells the fate of the two lovers. While they were both young, their love was to be taken seriously — so seriously the “winged seraphs of Heaven” became jealous. They are blamed for sending a chill in the air that caused Annabel Lee to become sick and die. He ends the stanza by telling us that her kinsmen have taken her and buried her. 

Midway through the poem, is the volta, or turning point, where the narrator breaks the social norms of grief and chastises the angels in Heaven for being responsible for Annabel’s death.  The image of a sad fairy tale has ended, and the narrator introduces darkness and pain into the story, while he shifts the focus to more introspective dialogue, allowing the audience a glimpse into his mind. The pace of the poem intensifies as he argues with the heavens, and the shock of his grief is fully realized.

The narrator continues to awe the audience when he shifts from anger at heaven to taunting the angels.  The fifth stanza returns the lover’s focus back to the reader and becomes the most chilling stanza in the poem. He tells us that their young love was stronger than those older and wiser, once reminding us not to take them lightly. Then he triumphantly declares: 

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:—

Poe uses a few different literary devices in this stanza. His use of alliteration in “demons down under the sea” and “separate my soul from the soul” is important, because it returns the poem to a melodic tone. He uses contrast and imagery, with the angels in heaven and the demons beneath the earth. 

  His most impressive use of imagery is his word choice. “Dissever my soul” is the most haunting, raw image in the poem. Severing invokes a brutal and unnatural separation of something meant to be one. When the narrator claims his soul could never be dissevered from the soul of Annabel Lee, he states that absolutely nothing, not death or even brutal force, could separate the unity of these two. This gut-wrenching line also becomes the most romantic line in the poem. This is a stark contrast from Anne Bradstreet’s light and tender poem, “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” where she is thankful to God for her husband. Annabel Lee’s lover is angry at God. He lumps the angels together with the demons and asserts that they will have no power here. 

The poem does not end on a peaceful note, but rather with another disturbing image. The narrator seems more thoughtful and melancholy and seems to be talking to himself again. He says the moon never shines without bringing him dreams of his Annabel Lee, and he sees her eyes every night in the shining stars. Then he reveals to the audience a stunning and unnerving secret:

  And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my life and my bride,

In her sepulcher there by the sea—

In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Here, he gives us the eerie ending of the story. Each night this lover lies down at the tomb of his lost bride. This is tragic, a bit horrifying, and romantic. To envision a lover so torn by loss that he cannot move on reminds the reader again of the intensity of the love of these two shared. 

Edgar Allen Poe was a remarkable poet, a master of using literary devices, and a fantastic storyteller. His love poem, “Annabel Lee” is not a sappy or cliche love poem, but one that is dark, raw, and full of imagery.  The dark themes in this poem are what make it so romantic. His use of shock and his approach of taboo themes only further reveals the intense love of the narrator. While the ending may seem disturbing to some, Poe’s effect is profound. He proves his point of the unparalleled love between the storyteller and his bride. The reader is left heartbroken, like the lover, and perhaps a bit jealous, like the angels, of a love so deep.

           Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allen. “Annabel Lee.” The American Tradition in Literature. McGraw Hill. New York, NY, 2009. 860-861.