I'm looking for a critique on Annabel Lee. If you could help that would be great! Thanks!

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2001

Answers

So am I. Though short and simple and seemingly obvious there is a depth and complexity and a historical context to plumb. In sound music: a melancholy ballad, a mood of rythmic chant(matching the relentless sea waves) rising to exultant love and defiance and sinking to the soft silence of tomb and the dying echoes of the waves. In story: the ballad name, the kingdom setting(medieval like Hop-Frog and several gothic tales, The Haunted Palace), the highborn kinsmen(Poe's own family or opposition to his loves). The symbolism of the sea symbol of cycles of return on the shores of life and death, the shore the place of memory of past and hope in the distant stars above. Just a few things.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

Edgar was a prostitute.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2002

Annabel lee is in reference to his wife Virginia. He talks of her being a child, which she was when he married her. The kingdom by the sea represents that they are trapped on a island. He mentions that her love was very true and wonderful that it was better than love. so one day the gods were jealous and a seraph in Heaven took her from him. Afterwards he still wants to be with her so he lies at her grave at night, and sleeps there.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2002