American
Romanticism
Student Poetry Presentation 2008
Thursday 2 October: poetry: Poe, "Anabelle Lee," N 678
poetry reader / discussion leader: Rachel Zock
Edgar Allan Poe
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Lee”>Wikipedia</a>, Annabel Lee is the last complete poem composed by Edgar Allan Poe. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after Poe’s death that same year. Like many of his works, the poem focuses on an idealized love lost to the tragic death of a beautiful girl and strikes a reverent, almost worshipful tone toward her memory.
Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far 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 beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Who inspired Annabel Lee?
Some say Poe’s wife, Virginia or perhaps the poet Frances Sargent Osgood, but a Web site dedicated to ghost stories offers an account of how the poem has ties to a local legend in Charleston, South Carolina. In his <a href=“http://www.ghostsource.com/hauntings/hauntings_ghostbythesea.php”>The Ghost by the Sea</a> entry, Tom Crawford tells the story of a Virginia sailor and a local girl named Annabel Lee who fell in love and became inseparable, much to the chagrin of her father, whose disapproval forced them into a clandestine affair conducted in a secluded graveyard and denied her lover even after she died, forcing him to return to the place of their assignations to mourn her.
According to Crawford, “While there is no evidence of Edgar Allan Poe having ever heard this local legend, it is said that this haunting tale was the inspiration for his poem ‘Annabel Lee.’ Some local legends even go so far as to suggest that the young sailor was Poe himself.”
Death as a Theme
Both Poe’s parents died when he was young. Poe frequently lamented the death of a beautiful woman in his poems, a theme which may arise from the repeated loss of women throughout his own life, including his mother Eliza Poe and his foster mother Frances Allan, as well as his wife, Virginia, just two years before he wrote Annabel Lee.
Virginia Clemm Poe
Biography
Born in Boston, Poe was taken in by a family in Richmond, Virginia after the death of his parents. He studied briefly at the University of Virginia and attempted a military career by enlisting in the Army, which sent him to Fort Moultrie in Charleston (lending credence to the idea that he could be the sailor in the Charleston legend).
In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin, who died of tuberculosis 12 years later, shortly after Poe achieved success with “The Raven.” Poe himself died at age 40 in Baltimore on October 7, 1849 of unknown causes – although I had always heard that he died drunk in a gutter – a tragically fitting end for a man whose literary career was built on the gothic.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe”>more</a>
Class Objectives
Objective 1a. Romantic Spirit or Ideology
* To identify and criticize ideas or attitudes associated with Romanticism, such as desire and loss, rebellion, nostalgia, idealism, the gothic, the sublime, the individual in nature or separate from the masses.
Nostalgia (from <a href=“http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nostalgia”> Merriam-Webster Online</a>)
Etymology:
New Latin, from Greek nostos return home + New Latin -algia;
akin to Greek neisthai to return, Old English genesan to survive, Sanskrit nasate he approaches
Date: 1729
1: the state of being homesick: homesickness
2: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also: something that evokes nostalgia
How does this poem evoke these themes?
* Romance narrative: A desire for anything besides “the here and now” or “reality," the Romantic impulse, quest, or journey involves crossing physical borders or transgressing social or psychological boundaries in order to attain or regain some transcendent goal or dream.
What boundaries are addressed?
* A Romantic hero or heroine may appear empty or innocent of anything but readiness to change or yearning to re-invent the self or world. …
How does the poem prize innocence?