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Brittany Rumans
Kalogerou
English Comp 1
October 27, 2014
The Chronicles of Annabel Lee
Annabel Lee, is the death of a beautiful woman, love, and how the narrator became insane. This poem really focuses on the toll that losing a loved one can take on
someones conscience. It is an extremely popular and well known poem because it
flows well and ironically has a demented yet loving sense to it. This was Edgar Allen
Poes last poem that he wrote before his death in 1849.
The poem is about a girl, Annabel Lee, who lived by the sea and loved the narrator very much. The audience can understand that in the first and second paragraphs.
The narrator claims that he and Annabel Lee knew that they were very young to be in
love, but more importantly they knew it was very true love. In fact, the narrator and Annabels love was so strong that even the angels in heaven were jealous of their love.

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The poem reads in the second paragraph With a love that the winged seraphs of
Heaven, Coveted her and me, and in the fourth paragraph The angels, not half so
happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me. The audience can realize that in paragraph four which reads The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and
meYes!that was the reason (as all men know, in the kingdom by the sea) that the
wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. The narrator
believes that the angels sent a wind down from the clouds to make Annabel Lee sick.
Annabel Lees illness did eventually kill her and the reader can understand this later in
the poem. 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 sepulcher In this kingdom by the
sea. Here the audience can understand or infer that her family and relatives came to
take her and put her into her tomb all while the narrator watched. The narrator then tells
the reader later on, 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

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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, basically
telling readers that he will love her for the rest of his life, and he will think about her every night. The narrator is so hurt by Annabel Lees death that he always thinks about her,
and he makes that very clear is this part of the poem.
The poem Annabel Lee is especially ironic in regards to Edgar Allen Poes
death. The fact that this is the last poem that Poe wrote before his death, and it is about
loving someone who died a short-lived yet fulfilled life. Try to picture Edgar Allen Poe
being Annabel Lee, and the narrator being Poes love. Poes love couldve been various things such as a girlfriend, his fans, his perspective on himself, his family, or his
constant need to write sometimes creepy but always passionate and thoughtful literature. This poem evokes the mood of true love into the reader by making them feel compassionate towards Annabel Lee but most importantly the speaker.
The narrator misses Annabel Lee after her death so much that he becomes permanently emotionally scarred, some readers may even think that the speaker becomes

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insane. The narrator says that he cannot stop dreaming of her, stated in the beginning
of paragraph six For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee. When the stars come out, the narrator thinks of Annabel Lees bright eyes,
also stated in paragraph six, And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the

beautiful Annabel Lee. The creepy and obsessed part comes in when the speaker
says, And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darlingmy darlingmy
life and my bride, in her sepulcher there by the seain her tomb by the sounding sea.
Here in the last words of the last paragraph, the narrator confesses to sleeping with Annabel Lees dead body in her tomb at night. Obviously readers can understand that he
loves her, but readers realize just how obsessed about her the narrator is after reading
the very last lines.
Since this is Edgar Allen Poes last poem before his death, it is one of his more
popular poems. Readers can really understand Poes mind in the last days of his life by
reading this poem. In Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe, the main themes are death of

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a beautiful woman, love, and how the narrator became insane. In the end, audiences
should be able to understand that Poe is driven crazy by his loved ones death.

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