Annabel Lee [poem]

Poe might tell you that this poem is like life...it starts out as a fairytale and deteriorates into a horror story. I see it primarily as an attempt to explain the intensity of love and how it can endure and conquer even the unconquerable.

First, there is the great awe of being loved, of being innocent and free. Annabel Lee is known and beloved by all, but she only loves him. You can sense his amazement in having her love, but at this point in the poem he is deserving of it, for he is innocent as well:

I was a child and she was child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee;

In myth, the jealousy of the gods is always destructive to humans, and Poe uses that device to account for show more his loss of his love. Of course, with her goes his innocence and the kingdom becomes a bleak and tormented place.

While many focus on the bizarre and almost horrific image at the end of the poem, I think this is more about the transcendent power of love and death's inability to annihilate it. He is able to hold on to her in his mind and his dreams. If he lies down with her figuratively, he is winning over death; if he lies down with her literally, than death has won for he is mad. Either way, love has won, for it endures.

I have read this poem so many times that I can almost quote it by rote. It never fails to awaken something in me, a kind of mood, a sort of longing; and it always makes me think of those whom I have loved and lost and who are never that far away from my heart. show less

Poe is campy but affecting as always--whether you've had this feeling of young love in a kingdom by the sea or not, its loss or lack must bite--and the unusual and slightly melted faces in Tibo's art are weirdly effective in the first happy part, though a bit goofy and inappropriate after it all goes wrong and she dies and etc.

A very haunting yet beautiful poetic work by Poe. It is chilling as he tells about love gained and lost. His grief is evident by his words that are everlasting as his love for Annabelle Lee was.

Good rhythm, mediocre content by my selective interests. It's a love poem about a kingdom by the sea and two "children"--presumably simply young lovers contrasting the love of people "who were older than we. I'm picky when it comes to romance stories. Poe has deeper-set interpretations that I kind of like, but then there's the simple, naive interpretations like this one that I'm indifferent to.

I used to look down on Edgar Allan Poe but I think my opinion is changing now....

An immensely beautiful and haunting poem!

In a kingdom by the sea.

Lindo poema de Poe, essencial pra quem quer ler/reler Lolita.

Una de las mejores obras de Poe. Sin dudas el mejor escritor de todos los tiempos.