Tuesday, September 17, 2013

What are some of the literary devices in Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee"?

Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" is a narrative poem, much
like a fairy tale, that transports the reader to a magical "kingdom by the sea." In
fact, this narrative is composed in ballad style, with the
first four lines written with the traditional rhyme scheme of
abab with tetrameter used in the first
and third lines, and trimeter used in the second and fourth
lines.


Adding to the musical quality of this ballad form,
Poe employs repetition and
refrain: 


  • The words
    love and loved run throughout the
    narrative

  • The beloved "Annabel Lee" is repeated
    throughout the stanzas

  • In the third stanza "kingdom of
    the sea" is repeated twice in order to emphasize

  • "child"
    is repeated in the second stanza for emphasis on the lovers'
    youth

  • "kingdom by the sea" acts as a refrain in the
    second line of the first three stanzas and the fourth line of the fourth
    stanza.

Moving the lines quickly
is alliteration with /l/ in line 9: "But we loved with a
love that was more than love" and /h/ in the line 21: "The angels, not half so happy in
heaven."


Poe also makes use of the
connotation of words. For example, he uses the word
sepulcher rather than tomb, suggesting that
Annabel Lee is from an upper class family; and to suggest the speaker's terrible
isolation, Poe employs the phrases "shut her up" and "away from me" rather than writing
"buried."


There is the effective use of
imagery in the third stanza, suggesting the disturbing
effect of the jealousy of the "seraphs of heaven," who are the fates. This tactile
imagery comes from such words as in the third stanza: "A wind blew out of a cloud,"
"Chilling my Annabel Lee," 

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