Edgar Allan Poe is recognized as one of the more prominent American writers of the nineteenth century. He was born in 1809, and shortly thereafter his actress mother died. Poe was taken care of by his foster-parents, the Allans. After purposely getting dismissed from the military, Poe moved in with his aunt, eventually marrying his thirteen year old cousin, Virginia.
She dies about ten years later, and Poe dies two years after her, in 1849, under mysterious circumstances. Edgar Allan Poe is well-known for his eery and horrific short stories and poems, which tend to deal in some way with death, and usually one of the characters is a beautiful lady with a tragic role. “His sensitiveness to the beauty and sweetness of women inspired his most touching lyrics.” (Britannica)Two excellent examples of Poe’s works, that also include his melodic meter, which involve the death of a beautiful lady are the poems “Annabel Lee” and “Lenore.”
“Annabel Lee” was written in 1849, and relates the narrator’s reminisces of his childhood love with a fair maiden “whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee.” It is believed to be written about Poe’s young cousin/wife, Virginia Clemm, although it is not known for sure. (Gmoser) The narrator asserts that the love between Annabel Lee and himself was so intense and pure that the angels themselves were jealous. He believes that this “love that was more than love” is the reason that an envious heaven would send forth weather that would bring illness and mortality to Annabel Lee, “chilling and killing” her.
Poe begins this poem by revealing the setting, which is “many and many a year ago, / In a kingdom by the sea.” This is relevant because the distance of the time from now makes the contents into a memory, and the location by the sea helps to convey some of the imagery of Annabel Lee’s “tomb by the side of the sea.” The narrator admits how he lays by her entombing place during “all the night-tide,” which brings more gloom to the subject matter of the death of his true love by setting the light of the environment to none except for the stars and the moon.
The narrator’s firm belief that “the winged seraphs of heaven” “coveted” the love he shared with Annabel Lee is what caused her death, since the angels were “not half so happy in heaven” as him and his Annabel Lee. This states a lot about the way he feels about his love, since heaven is supposed to be the ideal place that most people strive to go to. The irony of the way Annabel Lee’s “high-born kinsman came / And bore her away” is that the narrator feels that they are not truly separated, and will always be together. This is expressed by a part of the fifth stanza:
“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.”
The speaker declares how the his soul and that of his lover are eternally intertwined and inseparable, insinuating that it does not matter that Annabel Lee no longer has a physical living body, since the soul is generally considered in our society to be the most important part of a human being. The speaker also relates how he can still see the eyes of Annabel Lee in the night sky when he is laying by her grave. The stars are symbolic because they are the only light source by the sea at night, and the lover sees Annabel Lee’s eyes in them.
Eyes are sometimes referred to as the “windows to the soul,” so Annabel Lee’s soul is embodied in her eyes, and her soul is tied to the soul of the speaker, and that is how he sees Annabel Lee when her body is buried in her sepulchre. Being the only light in the night sky, the stars are also important because they represent the way Annabel Lee’s love, and knowing her soul is always with him, brightens his life and brings him joy.
The poem “Lenore” was first published in 1831. Poe opens the poem with a description of the fair Lenore’s soul floating down a “Stygian river.” The Stygian River is known also has the Stygis or Styx River, which is the path to Hades, and the realm of death, in mythology (something Poe was obviously interested in as he makes references to Greek and Roman culture and myths in other works also, such as “To Helen” and “The Coliseum.”) The speaker of “Lenore” calls, at first, for a glorious, “queenly” funereal ceremony and respect to be given to Lenore, since she “now so lowly lies” underground and dead.
The narrator then considers how the songs and requiem should be implemented, as he realizes that Lenore’s lover did not truly love Lenore, but only appreciated her well-off financial situation. The speaker then berates Lenore’s lover for blessing her now that Lenore was dead, but having a “slanderous tongue” while she lived. This is because the speaker holds Lenore in a high position, and she is “the innocence that died, and died so young.” He says “Peccavimus,” which is Latin for something along the lines of “a confession of sin,” implying that it is the speakers belief that Lenore’s lover has committed a sin by his betraying the true love of Lenore. The youth of Lenore is repeated throughout the poem, for example, she is “doubly dead in that she died so young” and she has hair full of life (“the life upon her yellow hair .”).
The life in her hair also states the recency of the death of Lenore, since “the life still there, upon her hair- the death upon her eyes” means that her hair has not begun to decay but she is undeniably no longer alive. The narrator of the poem then commands the false lover of Lenore to depart (“Avaunt, avaunt!”), at the same time he commands the “fiends below,” because “the indignant ghost” of Lenore “is riven from Hell,” or her soul is being ripped from hell and sent toward heaven “to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.” Her soul is “indignant” because her lover “hast…no tear” and “hated her for her pride.” That Lenore’s soul is being loosed from hell and sent to a godly position is the reason why the speaker suggests that no solemn bells be rung or songs be sung, in case the fake respect the dirges are being made out of clings to Lenore’s soul and prevents her from going as high into heaven as she is meant to.
The narrator says that he will sing a “paean of old days” to “waft the angel on her flight” because he believes that his joyful melody praising her will help her after death more than solemn dirges from false friends.
Edgar Allan Poe has a tendency to carry things throughout several of his works. As it has been previously mentioned, he makes references to classical Greece and Rome in many works, including “Tamerlane,” but he also shares names of the beloved beautiful women who have often died in some of his stories, and makes constant references to angels, evil beings, heaven, and hell. Beautiful women who are dead in Poe’s tales are, for example, Lenore in “Lenore,” Annabel Lee in “Annabel Lee,” Mrs. Wyatt in “The Oblong Box,” Eleonora in “Eleonora,” the “radiant maiden Lenore” in “The Raven,” and even Virginia, his wife, who is discussed in “To My Mother.”
The angels are “envying” in “Annabel Lee,” and Lenore is “the angel on her flight” in “Lenore.” In “For Annie,” Annie “prayed to the angels to keep me from harm” (stanza 13, line 3) and in “Ulalume” Poe mentions a “ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir” (line 9). The poem “Israfel” is entirely about the angel who, according to the Koran, has the “sweetest voice of all God’s creatures,” and Israfel is also mentioned in passing in other works of Poe. Eden is referred to in works such as “The Lake, To – ” and Hell is mentioned in a large amount of his writings, such as “the touch of Hell” in “Tamerlane” and “Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,” in “The City In the Sea.” Poe refers to or discusses heaven and hell and their residents hundreds of times in his literature, along with the constant theme of life and death. Poe also reuses names in his works occasionally.
For example, there is a “dear child” Lenore in “Lenore,” and in “The Raven,” the dead lover of the tale-teller is also named Lenore. A very similar name is “Eleonora,” which is the title of a short story and a character in that story who makes her husband vow to take no other woman upon her death. The name Annabel Lee is also reused in nickname form after being used in “Annabel Lee” – in “For Annie,” the caring lady is named Annie, which is short for Annabel Lee. These kinds of recurring names occur in a few other of Poe’s works, another example being the two poems “For Helen” which are two entirely different poems.
“As a critic, Poe laid great stress upon the correctness of language and metre.” (Britannica) This is perhaps why the metre used in Poe’s own writing is so distinctive in each poem, and helps to set the mood. Occasionally, Poe will depart from his metre, to emphasize a word, which can help shock the reader. Some have criticized Poe’s work as focusing too highly on the rhythms – Emerson referred to Poe at one point as “the jingle man.” (Howells)
Edgar Allan Poe was a very influential American writer, who shocked many readers with his obsessions with death and love and other things such as angels and fiends, and recurring dead, gorgeous ladies.
Poe accomplished many things during his lifetime, and although not all of his works are perfect masterpieces, his work as a whole is distinctive enough to influence, inspire, and instill emotion (be it horror or something else) in those who read and those who have written after Poe.
Reference:
- Gmoser, Stefan. “The Work of Edgar Allen Poe.” 1997. The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. 13 June 2004. “Edgar Allan Poe.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.13 June 2004 . Howells, WD. “Literary Friends and Acquaintances.” 1859. Bits and Pieces. 13 June 2004.
