Annabel Lee
Compare and Contrast Annabel Lee and The Highwayman “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes are two famous poems that share similar themes of love and death. In this essay, I will compare and contrast the form and style of these two poems and how the form and style help develop the themes I mentioned above. Firstly, the form and style of these two poems are very different. In the poem “Annabel Lee”, the poet wrote the poem in an ABABC rhyme scheme, but it is not consistent. Unlike the poem “The Highwayman”, there is no rhyming involved, but a use of word repetition is present. For example, “In the Highwayman” the poet repeats many of the same words in a stanza, such as in stanzas 5 and 6 of part one, the word moonlight is being repeated multiple times. All and all, the technique of rhyming and repetition help the reader give a better visualization of what is happening in the poems.
Secondly, both of these poems share the same themes of love. Firstly, the message of love in both of these poems is very powerful. In “The Highwayman”, the poet shows that the love between the highwayman and the female character Bess is very strong. For example, in lines 15-18 “He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there/But the landlord’s black eyed daughter/Bess, the landlord’s daughter/Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair”, and lines 77-82 “Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night! /Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light! /Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath/Then her finger moved in the moonlight/Her musket shattered the moonlight/Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death”, these two examples demonstrates how they really love each other and what they would do to save each other, such as Bess sacrificing her life to warn the highwayman that the King George’s men are waiting for him. Shifting to the poem “Annabel Lee”, the
Secondly, both of these poems share the same themes of love. Firstly, the message of love in both of these poems is very powerful. In “The Highwayman”, the poet shows that the love between the highwayman and the female character Bess is very strong. For example, in lines 15-18 “He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there/But the landlord’s black eyed daughter/Bess, the landlord’s daughter/Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair”, and lines 77-82 “Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night! /Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light! /Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath/Then her finger moved in the moonlight/Her musket shattered the moonlight/Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death”, these two examples demonstrates how they really love each other and what they would do to save each other, such as Bess sacrificing her life to warn the highwayman that the King George’s men are waiting for him. Shifting to the poem “Annabel Lee”, the