Grief In Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee

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Almost every person has experienced grief at some point in their life. Grief consists of five stages, the first of which being denial. Some people might say that denial is the stage of grief the speaker of “Annabel Lee” was experiencing. In Edgar Allen’s poem, “Annabel Lee”, the speaker is faced with the tragic death of his lover. Instead of describing feelings of extreme loss and emptiness, he details the idea that him and his lover, Annabel Lee, are not truly separated, and never will be. __________________ _______________transition sentence_____________________________________. Due to the speaker’s everlasting love for Annabel Lee, Edgar Allen Poe uses various poetic devices and sound imagery to express how the speaker and his lover can never be truly separated. The love between Annabel Lee and the speaker is unassailable. Not only is it certain, it’s infrangible. Their “...love it was stronger by 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 …show more content…

There is not a rigid or set rhythm or rhyme scheme in this poem. For example, the syllables in each line generally adhere to the pattern of 11, 7, 11, 7 or 10, 8, 10 ,8, nevertheless it often strays for that, very similarly to the rhyme scheme. Throughout a great deal of the poem, every other line rhymes, but it repeatedly diverges from that rhyme scheme. This is intentional though, because it represents Annabel Lee’s life. She and the speaker had such an intense love and a jubilant life, which was abruptly extinguished by her sudden, appalling death. The path that Annabel Lee’s life followed was abnormal, unexpected, and irregular compared to the average person, and that is why the irregularities of rhythm and rhyme scheme are used to represent her