Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
- Découvrir un aspect de la thématique d'étude l'expression des émotions
- Découvrir une œuvre intégrale d'Edgar Allan Poe, le poème Annabel Lee
- Annabel Lee est le dernier poème écrit par Edgar Allan Poe.
- Le narrateur y exprime son amour pour elle, qui perdure même après la mort de celle-ci.
- L'omniprésence du prénom Annabel et la répétition du possessif my montre l'obsession du poète pour la jeune fille.
- Leur amour y est décrit comme inaccessible à l'entendement humain (même les créatures célestes les jalousent).
- Ce poème comporte des caractéristiques de
deux mouvements littéraires :
- le romantisme
- le gothique :
- omniprésence de la mort,
- la nature qui aide à créer des images inquiétantes.
Annabel Lee is a poem written
by American author Edgar Allan Poe
in 1849. Written in the first person
singular, the poem explains how deeply in love the poet
is with a young woman. But the angels, the winged seraphs
of Heaven, are so jealous of this love that they kill
Annabel. Yet, the poet cannot help loving her after her death
as if their souls were united forever.
Annabel Lee is Poe’ last poem.
Published after his death, it was translated
in French
by Stéphane Mallarmé.
As you can see, the poet is never named and we do not
know much about him, apart that he is in love, but
Annabel is many times. Indeed her name is repeated at
every stanza. The obsession that the poet feels for
the young girl is reinforced by the use of the
possessive adjective my
(my darling, my life and
my bride), even if there is not a precise
description of Annabel in the poem.
What seems to matter here is the love they feel, and
the repetitions of the word love
tend to prove that it is the main theme of the poem. The
narrator wants to emphasize this feeling and show how
strong their relationship is, before and after
death, revealing in the last lines that now that she
is dead,
(...)
in the sepulchre there by the sea,
in her tomb by the sounding sea.
As early as the first lines of the poem we can feel that
the relationship between the poet and his love cannot be
compared to any other love. The story looks like a fairy
tale where time and space are imaginary
(It was many and many a
year ago / In a kingdom by the sea) and
where the lovers are confronted to forces of evil
(seraphs, angels
in Heaven, demons) which are too strong
for them.
The poet places this love on such a scale that it is
unattainable for any mortal, but he and Annabel are so
closely linked that they can be compared to the equals
of supernatural creatures because what they feel
cannot reach a human heart. And of course their love,
whatever may happen, will last forever. Neither the
angels nor the demons will be able to change anything.
Though Annabel Lee is a poem about love, the
story told by the narrator is quite dark. This paradox
helps the reader understand that nothing is common
here.
Indeed, even if the beginning reminds us of the
romantic genre of
the 19th century (childhood love,
considered as the purest time of life), the poem is soon
filled with gothic images and fear replaces innocence:
- the angels are envious (a deadly sin) and kill Annabel,
- and the final part of the poem deals with demons, tombs and death.
The story has progressively moved from optimism and
hope to pessimism and inevitable death.
As for nature, it clearly evokes
the Gothic genre as it helps the poet to create
a disturbing atmosphere:
- the sounding sea
- the moon never beams
Annabel Lee is a beautiful poem based on the love Edgar Allan Poe bore for a young woman. Was Annabel Lee his cousin Virginia whom he married when she was 13? It is most likely the case as Virginia became his muse and an important inspiration before she died of tuberculosis whereas she was only 25.

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