What is the significance of "In a Kingdom by the Sea" in "Annabel Lee?"

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He mentions the kingdom by the sea in almost every stanza, but I can't find any meaning to it. Does anyone understand it?

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2002

Answers

Cpomparing it to Hop Frog written in the same period, it may refer to the tyranny of the world in which Poe and his love suffered. As a ballad it briefly skethes a faraway, medieval air with only a few scant wordslike "highborn kinsmen" and "sepulchre". "By the sea" is an important symbolic placement. Poe finds himself trapped there, the living world of disappointment behind him and the insistent voice from beyond in the waves coming to the beach. There earth, sky, water meet, and life and death, past happimness and future reunion with Annabel. In defiance of the barrier he lies down there to show he is inseparable from his love.

Read "A Dream Within a Dream" and note the passage where the poet stands on the shore, despairng and defiant.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2002


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