Sample Critical Thinking On Poetry Analysis Paragraph

The poem Annabel Lee is amongst the last published works of Edgar Allan Poe. The poem is about a young, attractive girl named Annabel Lee who was very beautiful. She and the poet fell in love, a love that was pure and intense. They had eyes only for each other and their love was sufficient for them, as the poet says, “And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.”
However, the angels from the heaven and the demons from the underworld were jealous of the true love that the poet and Annabel Lee shared. The poet says that the angels, “winged seraphs of Heaven,” “her high born kinsmen” wrenched her away from him by killing her. The mode of her death is not clear; a cold wind blew from the clouds and killed her. However, her death is described as “chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.” The fair maiden, now dead, has been laid to rest in a “sepulchre” by the sea, that serves as her tomb.
Towards the ends of the poem, the poet expresses his true love for Annabel Lee and says that even the death cannot diminish his love for her. No power can make him forget her, “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.”
Scholars compare Annabel Lee to his last wife Virginia who died at the age of 27. They were married when she was only 13 years old. She was rendered invalid, and confined to bed for five years until her death in 1847. Annabel’s confinement in sepulchre could be an allusion to the bed-ridden state of his wife Virginia.
Edgar Allan Poe uses simple yet effective literary devices to augment the fairy tale like setting and feel of the poem. Phrases like “Kingdom by the sea,” “Winged seraphs of Heaven,” “wind came out of the cloud by night,” etc give a fantastic feel to the poem. Repeated use of these phrases reminds the readers of the imaginary setting of the poem, as well as the obsession with which the poet loved Annabel Lee.
Alliteration in lines adds a lyrical quality to the poem, for example, “half so happy in heaven,” “demons down under the sea,” and other. The rhyming pattern forms a meter, which is evident in the first stanza. The first line rhymes with the third, second, fourth, and the sixth follow the same rhyming scheme (sea, Lee, me). The repetition of phrases together with rhyming pattern go a long way in lending a fairy tale like feel to a rather gothic poem structure.