Enternal Love

Everyone dreams of their one true love, the love that they can’t live without. The one person who makes their life whole and/or complete and the person who makes them feel like no matter how bad things get everything will be okay as long as they have each other. In the poem Annabel Lee Edger Allen Poe writes of such a love, a love so deep that even the “the angels not half as happy in heaven went envying her and me.” Poe’s use of a combination of anapestic and iambic meter, along with a poetic diction that creates a fairy tale like realm between he and his love makes the readers of Annabel lee see and image of enduring love and creates a poetic masterpiece.

Poe opens the poem letting his readers know that what he is about to tell you happened “many and many a year ago”, which makes one wonder how well he could remember something that happened such a long time ago. In the second line Poe goes on to state that what happened occurred in “a kingdom by the sea”. When putting the first and second lines together it reminds one of the classic fairy tales opening “Once upon a time in a faraway land”, which very well could suggest that maybe Poe is embellishing the truth in order to capture the readers’ attention and create an entertaining and touching poem. Poe continues on to tell us that in this “kingdom by the sea" there is a maiden by the name of Annabel Lee. By using the word maiden Poe suggests that this Annabel Lee is a young unmarried woman. In the last lines of the first stanza Poe states that Annabel Lee has no other thought “than to love and be loved by me” which continues to show the similarities of the classic fairy tale love story.

The second stanza embellishes the fact that Annabel Lee is a young woman by stating “She is a child.” Poe also clarifies his age by saying “and I was a child”, which continues with the classic fairy tale story of a love between two young children. Although they were children Poe states that they “loved with a love that was more than love” which shows that they had very deep feelings/love for each other. Love so deep that it “winged the seraphs of heaven coveted” them.

The third stanza clarifies what Poe meant when he said the “seraphs coveted” them by stating “this is the reason in the kingdom by the sea that a wind blew out of a cloud at night chilling thy Annabel Lee.” By this point we don’t know yet what exactly Poe means but we do know the fact that Annabel lee is chilled couldn’t be good. Annabel Lee’s “high-born kinsmen came and locked her up in a sepulchre in the kingdom by the sea. “ Poe’s use of the word sepulcher lets us know that Annabel Lee is indeed dead. By this point in the poem Poe has created a very touching story by telling us of a classic fairy tale like love story between two children which with his use of iambic meter and use of rhythmatic words keeps the reader