Annabel Lee

The last poem Edgar Allan Poe—infamous poet and fiction author of the macabre—completed during his tumultuous life, “Annabel Lee,” was first published in the New York Tribune in 1849, two days after Poe’s death. Displaying the melodic lyricism, gothic overtones, and memorable imagery which informed so much of Poe’s work, “Annabel Lee” is considered one of the defining entries in his canon, and a classic of 19th century American poetry.

The poem concerns the death of a young woman (the titular Annabel Lee) and the narrator’s belief that her death is a result of the jealousy the angels feel for the love the couple shares. Throughout each of the poem’s six stanzas, the narrator alternates between describing the lasting intensity of the lovers’ union and the angels who decide to rob Annabel Lee of her life.

Through his use of phrasal repetition, melodic rhyme, nature-based imagery, Biblical language, and occult signifiers, Poe masterfully creates a haunted, brooding world in this poem. The work concludes with the narrator’s insistence that not even death can sever the love between the enduring couple.

Poet Biography

Born to David and Elizabeth Poe in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19th, 1809, and orphaned by the age of three, Edgar Allan Poe was raised in the home of Johnathan Allen—a Virginian businessman who never formally adopted him.