Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee

The essence of the poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe is endless love and the death of a beautiful young girl. In this poem, Poe makes use of a lot of poetic devices to enhance the reader's understanding of his deep love and affection for his beloved dead lover, Annabel Lee. Poe also shows how much he is mourning in the poem because he has difficulty in accepting the reality that his most precious wife is dead. Poe makes sure to convey and reflect his emotions about his dead lover by several uses of literary devices. The true meaning of the poem Annabel Lee is eternal love, and Poe emphasizes this theme through the uses of structure and several other literary devices.

The structure of Annabel Lee is a haunting ballad of a poem, with an abundance

For instance, the sea that Poe describes in this poem symbolizes the emptiness and desolation that the narrator feels after he has lost the love of his life. In the second line of the poem, the sea is mentioned in "kingdom by the sea" (Poe 2). This could symbolize the power of the sea, which could represent the power that some people hold. Annabel Lee held the power in the narrator and could easily control him, like how the sea controls whatever enters it. This line could also represent how Poe felt like royalty, or a king, when he was with his lover. The kingdom could also symbolize cruelty and tyranny, for instance, in line twenty of the poem and the image of the kingdom comes right after Poe speaks of the "highborn kinsman" (Poe 17) which could lead one to of the power in which things could be taken away without permission, such as the dear life of Annabel Lee. Poe also mentions a sepulchre, an empty room where people are placed after being dying. Before line twenty-six, this is the only thing that symbolizes that Annabel Lee is actually deceased. The sepulchre stands for death and horror and is used for a cold reality of death in Annabel Lee. Most importantly, the greatest symbol in this poem is Annabel Lee herself. She actually symbolizes and reflects Edgar Allan Poe's real life lost love, Virginia. Poe is using Annabel Lee to show his eternal love for Virginia and his grief caused by her