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Here is Annabel Lee Poetry analysis answers summary for your reading pleasure and exposure into this beautiful body of work.

“Annabel Lee” is the last poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost figures of American literature. It was composed in 1849 and published not long after the author’s death in the same year.

The poem features a subject that appears frequently in Poe’s writing: the death of a young, beautiful woman. The piece is narrated by Annabel Lee’s lover, who forcefully rails against the people—and supernatural beings—who tried to get in the way of their love.

Ultimately, the persona claims that his bond with Annabel Lee was so strong that, even after her death, they are still together.

“Annabel Lee” Summary

Many years ago, there was a kingdom by the sea. In this kingdom lived a young woman called Annabel Lee, whom the persona suggests the reader might know. 

According to the persona, Annabel Lee’s only ever thought about the love between them.They were both children, but their love went well beyond what love can normally be. 

In fact, this love was so unique that the angels of heaven were jealous and desirous of it. For that reason, back then, Annabel Lee was killed by wind from a cloud. 

She was then taken away by people the narrator calls “highborn kinsmen,” who could be the angels or Annabel Lee’s own family members. They enclosed her in a tomb, still within the same kingdom.

Retrospectively, the speaker believes that the angels, unhappy in heaven and envious of the love between him and Annabel Lee, caused the wind that killed her.

Their love, says the speaker, was more powerful than the love between people older and wiser than them. Furthermore, no angel from heaven or demon under the sea could ever separate his soul from Annabel Lee’s.

Every time the moon shines, it brings the speaker dreams of his beloved. When the stars rise, he can sense her sparkling eyes. 

Every night the speaker lies down alongside Annabel Lee—whom he calls his “life” and “bride”—in her tomb, with the sound of the sea coming from nearby.

Annabel Lee the Poem

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre [sic]

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And 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;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre [sic] there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Major Themes in “Annabel Lee”

Love and death are the major preoccupations in the poem. The piece revolves around the intense love of the speaker. 

To him, love is the highest force present in the universe and no power can destroy it; not even death. 

Although his beloved leaves the mortal world, he feels her presence always.

Bottom Line

Annabel Lee” narrate the story of young love cut short by tragedy.

As the persona (often assumed to be based on Poe himself, whose young wife died shortly before he wrote this poem) discusses his relationship with the now-deceased Annabel Lee, he presents the love between them as pure, eternal, and all-conquering.