An Explication of "Annabel Lee"
“Annabel Lee” is, at core, a memory viewed through the lens of grief. The poem draws the reader into the speaker’s sadness through a multitude of techniques. The foremost is Poe’s choice to frame “Annabel Lee” as a narrative poem. As the piece progresses, the speaker leads the reader, chronologically, through a story: that of the death of his love, and how his love for her continued even after she was lost to him. While some narrative poems may create a sense of detachment from the reader, “Annabel Lee” draws the reader into an immediate intimacy with the speaker. Within the first stanza of the poem, Poe employs direct address, suggesting to the reader that they may have already heard of Annabel Lee. In some ways, this line became a self-fulfilling prophecy: “Annabel Lee” is one of the most recognizable of Poe’s poems. However, it also establishes an informal dialogue between a reader and the speaker. “Annabel Lee” is not a grand declaration to a larger audience. Instead, it is framed as a private exchange between the speaker and the reader. This intimacy helps authenticate the aura of grief and vulnerability displayed throughout the piece.
“Annabel Lee” is written in alternating lines of tetrameter and trimeter. This is a traditional ballad meter. Generally, a line in tetrameter contains three anapests and a final iamb, while a line in trimeter contains two anapests and a final iamb. However, Poe frequently ruptures his own conventions. In fact, this variability begins in the second line of the poem, “In a kingdom by the sea” (2). This line of trimeter is composed of a single opening anapest and two iambs. It is significant that Poe establishes the fact that “Annabel Lee” will vary in form within the opening breaths of the poem. Grief often wavers and debilitates. As the poem is read aloud, these diversions of rhythm interrupt the reader’s breath and flow, much in the way that a person’s voice may tremble or hitch under the weight of sorrow.
While it is often prudent to place significance on the lines where a poem diverges from the expected form, it seems more important to notice where “Annabel Lee” falls into rhythm. These are the moments where the speaker’s voice is the strongest. The grief washes back, if only for a moment, and leaves room for statements of clarity. Or, perhaps it is better to see these as moments where the speaker is so sure of his statements that these convictions themselves offer brief respites from sorrow. At the end of the first stanza, for example, the speaker finishes a declaration that Annabel Lee had no other thought “But to love and be loved by me” (6). Here, the speaker slips back into the expected rhythm of two anapests and a closing iamb following a handful of lines of variation.
This return to the known and comforting rhythm established in the opening line gives the speaker’s statement a sense of strength and conviction. In this belief, he does not fumble. It suits the poem’s narrative. There are multiple events that occur outside of the speaker’s control throughout his time with Annabel Lee—her death and her body being taken from him are obvious examples—yet his love for her remains unchanged. In fact, lines that mention the speaker’s love for Annabel Lee often slip back into firm, expected rhythms. In the second stanza, for example, the line “But we loved with a loved that was more than love” signals another return to the expected rhythm of three anapests and a closing iamb (9). The speaker clearly finds himself awash in a sea of grief, clinging to the islands made of his love for and memories of his dead beloved. By routinely breaking from the expected meter and only returning in lines centered on Annabel Lee and the speaker’s affection for her, Poe uses the meter—and the occasional deviations from it—to reflect this metaphor into the poem.
The rhyme scheme of “Annabel Lee” is complex. The first stanza follows a relatively simple ABABCB rhyme scheme. However, the entire poem’s rhyme scheme can be represented by ABABCB DBEBFG ABGBHBIB FBABGB EBBEBJB KBLBMMBB. Just a glance at this simple map shows how many unrhymed lines occur within the poem. In fact, “Annabel Lee” contains seven lines that have no rhyme pair within the poem. Conversely, Poe frequently uses the B rhyme throughout the poem for a total of twenty lines ending in a B rhyme. Yet within these twenty lines, Poe uses only four final words: “sea,” “Lee,” “me,” and “we.” Once again, these rhyme decisions contribute to the poem’s sensation of stuttering grief as contrasted with the speaker’s foundations of love. Death and grief often feel like loose ends, like lines that fail to pair up in rhyme. In fact, these lines could be considered reflections of the speaker himself: where he once rhymed with his Annabel Lee, he now stands alone; his musicality has been taken to the grave alongside her. Yet her name itself continues to chime.
The four words in repeated rhyme are worthy of particular note, as each plays a vital role in the narrative. The sea is both the setting and the prevailing image. The poem’s rise and fall—of expected versus unexpected meter, of rhymed and unrhymed lines, and even of internal line rhythm—mimic waves. The repeated rhyme of Annabel Lee’s name itself centers her in the story. By rhyming her name with both the location of her tomb (the sea) and her surviving lover (the speaker, represented in the poem by “me”), Poe shows how Annabel Lee has transcended her body. Her death, while the catalyst for the piece itself, is not the ending of her significance. In fact, she seems to gain in death a reverence from the speaker that only amplifies his love for her. Even simplistically speaking, the decision to rhyme “Lee” and “me” ties Annabel Lee and the speaker together even within the lyric of the poem. The added rhyme of “we” only furthers this theme of binding.
End rhyme is not the only form of rhyme employed in “Annabel Lee.” Poe also uses internal rhyme. A strong example of this can be found in the fifth stanza within the phrase “ever dissever my soul from the soul” (32). In this line, “ever” is rhymed with “dissever” and, of course, “soul” rhymes with “soul.” This second observation is obviously an example of repetition; however, I would be remiss not to consider the effect of repetition on rhyme patterns as well as cadence. The internal rhyme in this line seems to punctuate the speaker’s determination. Human brains tend to remember rhymes more effectively. By including so much of this effect in a single line, Poe is ensuring that this is one of the moments within the poem that will stand out. In some ways, the concept of the speaker refusing to allow his soul to be dissevered from Annabel Lee’s can summarize the entire piece. This rhyme repetition highlights this line as the thesis of the poem.
The majority of the internal rhyme within “Annabel Lee” occurs at the end of the poem. There are two examples of internal rhyme contained within this final stanza: “stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes” and “the night-tide I lie down by the side” (36, 38). Even in general, this final stanza rumbles with rhyme. Nearly every line rhymes with another. The opening line is the only rupture of this pattern. However, even “For the moon never beamed without bringing me dreams” forms a slant rhyme with the following line, “Of the beautiful Annabel Lee” (34, 35). It is interesting that, rhythmically, “Annabel Lee” appears to reach a tenuous harmony in the final stanza. In some ways, this reflects the speaker's journey through his grief. At the end of the poem he reaches a kind of acceptance, even if this acceptance appears to be found through accepting the grim touch of death himself. Even so, there is a kind of peace.
Rhyme is not the only way that Poe uses sound to his advantage in “Annabel Lee.” In fact, one of the most interesting sound combinations within the poem is found within the name Annabel Lee itself. As “Annabel” ends with an /l/ sound, “Lee” begins with the same. This blurs the edges of the name, merging it together through an /l/ sound, known as a liquid. Not only does this name flow off the tongue in speech, but an /l/ sound rolls across the top of the mouth much like an ocean wave. The sea is so prominent within “Annabel Lee” that it could be considered a third character. Here, the ghost of it is even present within Annabel Lee’s name and, therefore, the poem’s title. The /l/ sound found in “Annabel Lee” is repeated frequently throughout the poem, alongside /s/ and /w/. These are soft, slow-moving sounds that drag across speech. This gives the poem a haunting, lilting sensation. It smooths out like the lapping of water in /l/ and /w/ and hisses softly like seafoam in /s/. However, the ending of the poem suddenly employs a repetition of /d/ and /b/ in “my darling, my darling, my life and my bride” (39). Both /d/ and /b/ belong to a class of sounds known as voiced stops. These sounds arrest the flow of speech, popping like gunshots. In his final stanza, Poe make the poem pop through the reader’s mouth as opposed to glide, building tension. The piece returns to its familiar /s/ sounds in the last two lines with phrases such as “her sepulchre there by the sea” and “sounding sea” (40, 41). Following the pops of the /b/ and /d/ sounds preceding it, the prominence of /s/ in this ending feels even more like a final, whispering breath.
Repetition plays a strong role in “Annabel Lee.” Poe frequently repeats the same word or phrase over and over, both in single lines and across lines in the poem. The opening stanza contains many examples of repetition contained within a single line, such as “many and many a year ago” and “to love and be loved by me” (1, 6). Poe also uses repetition across multiple lines in this stanza, such as using the phrase “maiden lived” in both lines three and five. This repetition creates emphasis, such as in “to love and be loved by me,” as well as adds to the cyclical nature of the poem. As mentioned above, Poe rhymes a handful of words repetitively throughout “Annabel Lee.” The repetition of “sea” keeps the setting at the forefront of the reader’s mind. Often, the poem reads like the crashing of misty ocean waves. By priming the poem with these ebb and flow patterns and then continuing to reiterate the presence of the sea, Poe supercharges this connection.
“Annabel Lee” has captured the consciousnesses of the bereaved since its original publication. The narrative aspect of the poem conforms to the way a reader experiences memories of loss: narrative and chronological. It binds Poe to the reader in intimacy. Just as a friends might confide stories of their griefs with each other, “Annabel Lee” confides in the reader. While the poem has a general form of alternating tetrameter and trimeter, Poe frequently diverges from the set form to create a trembling effect across lines, mimicking the way a speaker’s voice may waver when grief-stricken. In lines where the speaker asserts facts or beliefs about his love of his Annabel Lee, however, the poem slips back into regular meter, emphasizing the stability of his and his dead bride’s love. Multiple lines within “Annabel Lee” fail to rhyme, reflecting how loss can feel like a loose end. Conversely, the four words “sea.” “Lee,” “me,” and “we” are rhymed frequently and reliably, centering the poem’s rhyme stability around the speaker, the sea, and his love. The majority of end rhyme occurs in the final stanza, signaling the end of the speaker’s journey through his grief.