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Edgar Allan PoeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
By opening “Annabel Lee” with the lines, “It was many and many a year ago, / In a kingdom by the sea” (Lines 1-2), Poe creates a sense that the reader has entered the world of a classical fairy tale. This sense is furthered with mention of a “maiden” (Line 3) who inhabits the kingdom. When coupled with the use of a simple rhyme scheme, this allusion to fantasy stories appears to prepare the reader for a traditional children’s story where at the close of the tale, everyone will live “happily ever after.”
However, matters considerably darken in the second stanza, as the young couple experience love for one another on such a heightened plane that the “winged seraphs of Heaven / Coveted [the pair]” (Lines 11-12). Given that angels—typically used to symbolize innocence, sanctity, and grace—are instead driven by apparent cruelty, jealousy and rage, “Annabel Lee” develops into something far different than a fairy tale; it becomes instead a gothic romance whose images of violence, depression, and ghosts create a haunted, despairing tone, which maintains for the rest of the poem.
By Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream Within a Dream
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Berenice
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Hop-Frog
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Ligeia
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Tamerlane
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The Black Cat
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The Cask of Amontillado
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The Conqueror Worm
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The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
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The Fall of the House of Usher
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The Gold Bug
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The Haunted Palace
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The Imp of the Perverse
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The Lake
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The Man of the Crowd
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The Masque of the Red Death
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The Murders in the Rue Morgue
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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
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The Oval Portrait
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The Philosophy of Composition
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