The Raven and Annabel Lee

“The Raven” and “Annabel Lee”
Edgar Allen Poe known as a poet and critic but most famous as the first master of the short-story form, especially tales of the mysterious and macabre. The literary merits of Poe's writings have been debated since his death, but his works have remained popular and many major American and European writers have professed their artistic debt to him. Edgar Allen Poe is noted as one of the few American “Romantic” poets. Poe’s poem “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee” portray Romanticism as characterized by emotion, exotica, and imagination.

In “Annabel Lee’, a young man is mourning the death of a beautiful young lady. Even though the woman had died quite some time ago, the man is still in melancholy. He misses her terribly and constantly thinks of how she was tragically taken from him by the angels who were jealous of their love and by her family who did not think he was capable of bringing her to her final resting place. He loved Annabel Lee more than any other human can love another.

“The Raven” connects very similar topics. Like “Annabel Lee”, “The Raven” , a man, most likely older than the man in “Annabel Lee”, mourns the death of his love whom he called “Lenore”. Lenore, like Annabel Lee, had died several year earlier. In “The Raven”, man hears tapping on his chamber door and sees the curtains slowly swaying. He believes that it can be no other than Lenore. Unfortunately for him though, it is only but a bird. A large, black bird knows as the Raven.

With insistent meter and captivating rhymes schemes, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” and “The Raven” are both very similar. However, in their views of love, namely the loss and mourning of beautiful women, they differ greatly. Through analysis of the two poems, the reader observes that whom Poe had chosen for a speaker, the tone and the sound effects are all factor in both poems that make two poems with a similar theme contrast.

Both poems mean the same thing and follow the same...