Annabel Lee Analysis

Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Never fear, Shmoop is here. Check out our...

Rhythm and Rhyme Grab BagPoe uses a variety of different poetic techniques in this poem. We'll get specific about some of them, and talk about some of the ways he gets weird and fancy. But lets sta...

We imagine our speaker being the kind of guy you'd meet at a party and be interested in right away. He'd be charming, engaging, and maybe he'd tell some good stories. Then, as you went on, you'd st...

The Creepiest Kingdom EverWe get a real fantasy movie vibe from this poem. That kingdom by the sea can't just be a crummy beach town. It has to have a huge castle with amazing towers and big steel...

This poem has the rhythm of a great ghost story. We don't just mean that it's about spooky stuff. It's also about the way that it sounds, the way it builds from calm and quiet to super dramatic and...

Annabel Lee is the star of the poem, and she's the only thing in the world that matters to the speaker. So it's not too surprising that the poem is named after her. On top of that, the title introd...

Dead GirlfriendsPoe was definitely a great poet, and a master of suspense. He also had a serious obsession with writing about dead women. He did it in some of his other poems ("The Raven," "Lenore,...

(3) Base Camp The main pieces of this poem are simple and timeless. Love and death. Poe can't resist throwing in a few tough words (most people don't go around talking about sepulchres every day),...

Vladimir Nabokov's most famous novel Lolita was originally named "The Kingdom by the Sea" after the line in "Annabel Lee." The book tells us how the main character was in love with a girl named "An...

PGWe're not sure we want to think too hard about this one. There's a lot of passion in this poem, but Annabel Lee starts out as a little girl and then she's dead. Still, it might be a little intens...