Could someone please help me with an alalysis of the foot/meter of Anabel Lee. Also, what is the ryhme scheme? Thanks

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2003

Answers

A peculiar anapestic structure, iambic that Poe in "The Rationale of Verse" termed a "resolved iambus" and "bastard anapest". A good reading of the poem(varied with interactive features) is available at knowingpoe/thinkport.com. Use Shelley's method of substituting da di dum type rhythms for the words. that might help. it is somewhat onomatopaeic of the sounds of the sea, escpecially in the regularity of rise and fall. There is one rhyme throughout endlessly alternated with certain exception. sea, me, Lee, over and over, In the third stanza of her death sea is repeated with an extra two lines, emnphasizing that event. Then in more emotional progression the 4th stanza drops to six lines with the sea rhyme alternated. The fifth doubles the we for emphasis, in this case a bitter satiric critique of the wiser denoting a real dwelling upon the offense, followed by an extreme rebellion. Symbolically and rebeliously the we's unite against death. Then in parallel to the third we finish with eight lines filled with light and sound imagery and two ending couplets. The first couplet is another rhyme side and bride uniting again rhyme, story and image, but followed with the melancholy end of the the sea couplet.

Poe has two endings. One is relentless similar meter in the two sea lines. Against his final jundgment the less perfect but more conclusive and poetically appealing downbeat of "sounding sea" is preferred to the repretition of "by the side of the sea".

The "my darling line repeating the cry almost halts the poem with a sob. As a dramatic reading revealing the progression of the poet's feelings in drear counterpoint to the ceaseless rhytmic vigil. It is quite a masterwork and naturally done where even the variations and paralles are a kind of music and dramatic speech. Other poets use dramatic monologue in meter or lyrical emoting in flowery language. This restrained and highly structural ballad internalizes a rustic song style into the charcter reliving as we sense he has for decades his life of the heart. So beautiful is the music itself and natural the mood and mocvement that we do not even notice it happening.

Creative yet relentless then experimental use of rhyme as emotional punctuation. Internal rhymes relieve or increase the monotony of the sea sound. u u / u u / u u / u u /. Four feet of anapests often followed by lines of roughly two feet or three including a final u /. Again there is nearly any emotional variance breaking through the monotony at important points and strong feelings.

I'm not that great at metrical analysis and Poe is hard to follow in his own pioneering theories of poetics. Poe did not believe in rigidity in structure but definitely believed they should scan naturally. definitely a lyricist. Yet his verse when examined closely is very structured on multi levels and parallels with extra lines or variations fror dramatic difference. The scanning today feels too flowery or muscial to the modern taste and I have heard too many imagists and word emphasizers butcher the whole concept of lyrical flow for the sake of their own practice.

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2003