By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
After ‘The Raven’, which is undoubtedly Poe’s most popular poem, ‘Annabel Lee’ is perhaps his next best-known and admired. ‘Annabel Lee’ has been called ‘the simplest and sweetest of [Edgar Allan Poe’s] ballads’ (by Poe’s biographer, George Edward Woodberry), but how ‘simple’ the poem is remains to be seen.
Is it a ballad, or narrative poem, or is it a lyric? Before we grapple with some of these questions and offer some words of analysis, here’s a reminder of the text of the poem ‘Annabel Lee’.