"Annabel Lee"

“Annabel Lee”

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
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.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea. 

-Edgar Allan Poe

The first stanza of the poem introduces the key elements of the work. It begins almost like a fairy-tale with “many and many a year ago” and a “kingdom by the sea.” The narrator introduces the title character Annabel Lee. He also mentions how madly in love he was with the maiden. The word “maiden” indicates that Annabel is most likely young and likely beautiful. The poem continues by developing on their love. It started at a young age and the narrator uses the past tense of love, indicating that the love may be past. He claims that their love was “coveted” by the “winged seraphs of heaven” (angels). Poe repeats the line “kingdom by the sea” to possibly reiterate the distance between the narrator and the maiden. Water is also known to represent the subconscious, meaning that the maiden’s kingdom may be representative of being on the edge of one’s consciousness. In the next stanza, the narrator expands on his previous points and claims that the angels’ desire for their love was the reason the winds “chilled” Annabel. The literary associations of cold and death as well as the line describing how she was “shut in a sepulcher” indicate that Annabel is most likely now dead. The fact that her “kinsman bore her away” indicates that there may have been some existing friction between the narrator and the maiden’s family. The narrator also repeats “kingdom by the sea” twice more in this same stanza. He then goes back to blaming the angels for the death, this time with more intensity. He follows by circling back to the intensity of the love they shared and claims that no creature from heaven nor hell can ever separate their souls from one another. Religion was still prominent during the Poe’s time period; therefore, the fact that the love is stronger than the will of heaven and hell serves the purpose to demonstrate the intensity and pure strength of their love. The second to last stanza marks a shift. The narrator begins using present tense as opposed to past tense. The narrator says that the shine of the moon brings him dreams of Annabel and that the stars are like her eyes looking at him. The association of the dead lover and night are aligned with the macabre and dark themes that traditionally surround Poe’s poems. The use of celestial bodies to represent Annabel further emphasizes the everlasting aspect of their love. The moon and stars will be there for millions of years. It also accentuates the distance between them that death inevitably brings. As we approach the end, the narrator seems increasingly disturbed mentally. He lies by the dead body of his “darling.” This shows that the narrator overcomes the separation of death by lying with Annabel in her tomb. 

Dante and Ellison

It is not uncommon for writers to draw inspiration or draw connections to other famous works. A famous Italian writer from the Middle Ages, Dante Alighieri’s most widely known publication is without doubt Inferno. In this work, Dante closely describes what he calls the nine circles of Hell. Each circle is home to perpetrators of a specific offense (such as murder, theft, etc.). Traces and allusions to Dante’s Inferno can be found throughout Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Upon arriving in New York and being consecutively rejected, the narrator finds himself working in a deep basement “three levels underground”(Ellison 207). The inclusion of the underground is already an indication of a possible allusion to death and hell. The fact that it is the third level down specifically points more precisely to Dante’s description of Hell in which the third circle is reserved for particularly gluttonous individuals. This in turn draws another connection back to the battle royal, where the narrator and other black boys fought and struggled for the sake of enriching themselves. Lucius Brockway, the man who works and almost appears to live in the basement, exhibits clear signs of gluttony. Lucius fights to keep all of the work to himself, not wanting to allow those in need of a job to work alongside him. He goes as far as to potentially kill the narrator in the explosion to retain the job for himself. Traces of the Inferno are also found in the novel’s structure. The Inferno is divided into three important parts, covering a transformation from “illusion to reality,” and finally “culminating in maximum insight.” The same basic structure is present in Invisible Man. When interviewed, Ralph Ellison explained that he had divided the novel into three, concise parts going from “purpose to passion to perception.” Like Inferno, Invisible Man results in a greater insight or perception. Both works also cover a transformation for the narrator.  The narrator’s journey in Invisible Man, can even be interpreted as one from “illusion to reality” as the narrator comes to term with his invisibility and accepts it as his “true” identity.  The Inferno, put simply, describes Hell as viewed by Dante. In Ellison’s novel, Harlem is constantly described using words that are heavily reminiscent of Hell, such as flames, melting, and “burning heat.” Using this connection Ellison may be hinting that Harlem is the narrator’s Hell through which he ventures. This would be supported by the fact that the narrator appears to meet sinners everywhere he goes. An example would be Trueblood who impregnated his own blood, or Ras who seeks to murder the narrator for supposedly betraying the black people. It is important to note that the narrator finishes where he now resides (underground) in the epilogue. This may be a connection to Limbo reserved for those who are virtuous but do not follow Christian faith. This could represent the narrator’s virtue despite not abiding by the rules that everyone else follows (society). While these are only wild speculations, it would be worth further exploring this topic in class discussions, for I find this connection particularly intriguing after visiting Dante’s home and place of worship in Italy last summer.