Annabel Lee Analysis

Poe 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 start by breaking it down in...

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...

We 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 gates. Think The Lord of t...

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...

Poe 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," "Ulalume,") an...

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), and there is d...

We'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 intense...