Smith 1

Refer to these notes

as your guide for the
project.

Suzie Smith
Ms. Brooks
Gifted English 6, Period 1
Commented [J1]: MLA Page Header

14 April 2014
Annabel Lee Analysis
In Annabel Lee, Edgar Allen Poe honors his deceased wife in his poem of the most
perfect love. The poem tells the story of the love between the narrator and Annabel Lee, a young

Commented [J2]: The topic sentence should include the title

and author.

maiden who is killed by the angels who are so jealous of such an ideal love.

Commented [J3]: The introductory paragraph gives a brief

overview of what the poem is about.

Poe uses sound elements, such as alliteration, rhyme, and repetition, to heighten the
contrast between his love and her death; he mentions, "the demons down under the sea...can

Commented [J4]: After SIFTing your poem, decide which

elements are essential to the meaning of the poem. You are not
just listing the elements and examples here. You are explaining
WHY and HOW those elements impact the meaning. The
explanation is the most important part of your analysis.

[n]ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee" (31-33), while maintaining
his claim that physical death holds no control over their love. Alliteration is used to introduce
her death: The angels, not half so happy in Heaven (21). The rhyming and repetition of sea,

Commented [J5]: Use quotes for your examples/evidence, and

put the line number in parenthesis.

Lee, and me makes the poem flow to create a story of this lost love. Repetition is important

Commented [J6]: When providing words as examples, put

them in italics.

throughout the poem to show the importance of his love for her. In fact, love/loved is found
numerous times, which puts emphasis on the intense emotion, and the use of kingdom by the
sea throughout expresses the ideal world in which this emotion exists. How ironic that even in
death, the love remains eternal, and he is able to return to the sounding sea (41) to visit her
tomb.
Poe infuses figurative language to move the tone from that of happiness in the memories
of his love to that of sorrow in the loss of it. Hyperbole is used to show that love is extreme:
she lived with no other thought than to love (5-6) and we loved with a love that was more
than love (9). The wind is personified as it first blows out chilling her, and then it comes out
of the cloud by night, chilling and killing (25-26) Annabel Lee. The internal rhyme of chilling

Smith 2

and killing just adds to the depressing and heartbreaking tone of the moment of her death in
stanza 4. As the poem concludes, repetition of the beautiful Annabel Lee, my darling, and a
return to the rhyme of Lee and sea puts the emphasis on the key words that express the theme of
Poes poem that love is beautiful, and it is also eternal, much like the sea.

Commented [J7]: Even though I may have identified more

elements when I first SIFTed the poem, I only used examples and
discussed the elements that supported the meaning. For Annabel
Lee, these elements are
S - alliteration, rhyme, repetition
I irony
F hyperbole, personification
T tone, theme