英文诗歌鉴赏-Annabel Lee

Annabel Lee——Edgar Allan Poe It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of ANNABEL LEE;And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan 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 winged seraphs of heavenCoveted her and me.And this was the reason that, long ago,In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingMy beautiful Annabel Lee;So that her highborn kinsman cameAnd bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchreIn 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 loveOf 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 soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee.For the moon never beams without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,In the sepulchre there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.Edgar Allan Poe is one of the greatest literary figures in the history of American literature. He develops his own poetic theories and tries to apply the theories to his writing. Poe is against the didactic function of poetry, advocating that poetry should be a rhythmical creation of beauty. Poe's poems are perfect illustrations of his poetic theories. His poems are aimed at producing a melancholy feeling in the reader and make the reader feel the metrical beauty of poems.His poetic works are well appreciated all over the world. "Annabel Lee" is one of his last poems and also one of his best poems. The poem is also well organized, with a musical rhythm and fairy tale form.Annabel Lee, like many other poems of Edgar Allan Poe, describes the theme of the death of a beautiful woman which is called “the most poetical topic in the world” by the poet himself. In the poem, the narrator and Annabel Lee had an extremely strong love for each other since they were children. Unfortunately, their love is so strong that even angels envy them and Annabel Lee was killed by them. However, the narrator retains the deep love for her after her death. Just as the last stanza shows us, the narrator dreams about Annabel everyday and lies by the side of her tomb at night. It seems that their love is beyond grave and death. There are many speculation of who is the inspiration of Annabel Lee. I would like to believe that Annabel L ee is referring to Poe’s wife Virginia who died at the age of 26. She was loved as a child by Edgar Allen Poe because she was only 13 when she married the 27-year-old Poe. And she was the only bride of him. Poe set the scene in a kingdom by the sea and uses some images like sepulcher and tomb, which add some Gothic touch to the poem. With the repetition of some words and phrases, the poem has a nostalgic tone and gives us a mournful feeling. The mysterious tone of the poem makes us feel that only in mysterious and ancient time does such kind of love exist. Besides the content, the poetic structure of this poem is also what I appreciate. It is composed of six stanzas with lines at different length, which gives me a feeling of the waves of the ocean. When I read it, the rhyme and the different length makes it has a musical effect and it is like telling a story to someone. "Annabel Lee" was composed in the form of a fairy tale.First, the poet chose simple everyday words as that of tales to compose his poem, so that it could be easily reached by everyone, even by small children. Second, the starting line "It was many and many a year ago, / In a kingdom by the sea," suggests that the tale has existed for a long time and it has been told many times, which indicates the strong love between the narrator and Annabel Lee doesn't fade with time, and it will be told from generation to generation; by this way, their love will reach immortality."Annabel Lee" also shows some characteristics of a ballad.For example: The language is simple; it is accessible to the common people and children. The theme is tragic and the tone is melancholy; the poem tells the death of a beloved young beauty,which is the most frequently seen theme in Poe's poems. Poe uses insistent repetition of phrases like "Annabel Lee", "in this kingdom by the sea" for effect, which might be considered as refrains in a ballad.Let’s appreciate it carefully.In Stanza 1, "maiden" implies the narrator hasn't consummated with Annalbel Lee before she had beendead, and it symbolizes the innocence and pure. As above "many and many" and "love and be loved", Poe utilizes the repetition to enhance the rhythm of the poem.However, we can also find the repetition in Stanza 2, as the sounds of "w" and "l": But we loved with a love that was more than love. "I was a child and she was a child, here we find the repetition of the word, child suggesting the amazement and fascination in youth.Poe uses "sepulchre" in Stanza 3 and we can see "tomb" in Stanza 6; the former is where Annabel Lee is buried in and the latter is where Annabel Lee's soul rest in, furthermore "tomb" deepens the ominus connotion with finality, just like a more deathly toll of a funeral bell. There're rhyme and alliteration as follows:A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingMy beautiful Annabel Lee;So that her high-born kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchreIn this kingdom by the sea.Let's get an overlook on Stanza 4 and Stanza 5, then we can find that Poe heavily uses alliteration just in want of creating fascinating sound patterns, as the following sentense in these two Stanzas:A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingThat the wind came out of the cloud one night,But our love it was stronger by far than the loveOf those who were older than we -Of many far wiser than we -"In the kingdom of the sea" and "Annabel Lee" are repeated by the narrator in term of a repetition of Poe, which is murmured by the narrtor after losing his lover, Annabel Lee. And now Annabel Lee in the kingdom of the sea seems to be a nightmare.Throughout the poem, Poe utilizes the imagery of drak and light, and indicates that in this kingdom by the sea is a very bright, pleasing and peaceful place with sunshine on the narrator and his beautiful Annabel Lee, but, irronically, it's the very angles, Seraphs from another same place like the kingdom of the sea, lightful and cheering, that let the sky get dark (the wind came out of the cloud one night) and send the chilling and killing wind that takes Annabel Lee away from the narrator and this Kingdom of the sea and push her into the sepulchre, and even the tomb because of envy and jealousy. However, it also gives us an evidence that the narrator is very childish and hasn't grown up yet since he went throgh the lose. The repetiton of his word implies that he is trying to rationalize his feeling and be mature.And then the last four lines in Stanza 5, which're totally different from The Raven, Poe or the narrator, believes that two can be one or reunited by love even beyond the death and none can dissever the soul from the other soul of the two lovers. It's the last poem of Edgar Allen Poe so that we can see mature and tranquility in this poem. In Stanza 6, Poe uses the light of the moon and the brightness of the star to account so strong love of the narrator and Annabel Lee that he lies down by her side in her sepulchre and her tomb by the sea where love is everything, even the narrator's life.What a bitter sweetness love is!Mood and Tone of the Poem"Annabel Lee" is a poem Poe wrote to grieve over his early-died wife. At the beginning,the tone of the poem is quietly mournful. It feels like that the narrator is lost in thought, recalling the precious love between him and Annabel Lee. By and by, with the narrator thinking of the death of Annabel Lee, the tone becomes more mournful.When it reaches the fourth stanza where the reason of Annabel Lee's death is revealed, the tone is indignant. The narrator becomes angry at the winged seraphs, since they take away his lover. Then the tone becomes more and more emphatic and risesto its emotional climax in the last stanza. Everything in the world makes the narrator think of Annabel Lee. Hence the narrator expresses his strong will of loving Annabel Lee forever. In a word, the poem is an elegy written to his dead wife; it wears a mournful and melancholy tone.Rhythm of the PoemPoe believes that beauty is the sole purpose of the poem. He insists on an even metrical flow in versification. Therefore, all his poems are rhythmical and musical. "Annabel Lee" was mainly written in anapestic trimeter, tetrameter, and sometimes dimeter.The poem consists of six stanzas. the first, second, and fourth stanza each contains six lines, the third and sixth stanza eight lines, and the fifth stanza seven lines. What's more, the lines are also of different lengths. One long line is frequently followed by a short one. Different lengths of lines and stanzas create a rise and fall rhythm, just like the ebbing and flowing of the sea which create a melancholy and sad feeling in the reader.The rhyme scheme of the first stanza is ababcb; the second stanza is abcbdb; the third stanza is abcbdbeb, and rhyme schemes of the last three stanzas are abcbdb, abbabcb, abcbddbb. From here you can see that the rhyme scheme is not so regular among each stanza, but the [i:] sound is the basic rhyme through the whole poem. This kind of rhyme scheme reflects the unchanging love of the two lovers. [i:] is a long front close vowel, the sound of which is similar to the weeping of people. Therefore the frequent use of this rhyme adds the great sorrow of the narrator at losing his loved one. Another frequently used rhyme is [ai] such as in "night", "tide", "side", "eye" and "bride". This use of this diphthong can create a high pitch, which expressed the anger of the narrator towards the seraphs.Poe also used other rhyming types: Alliteration of [m] and [奁] in the line "That a maiden there lived whom you may know". Assonance of [ei] in the same line with "maiden" and "may"; [i耷] in "chilling and killing my Annabel Lee". "Chilling" and "killing" is also an example of end rhyme and feminine rhyme. Internal rhymes like "beams" and "dreams" in the line "For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams". All in all, [m], [n], [耷], [奁] and [i:] are the recurrent sounds in the poem. These sounds usually create a low mood and make people want to cry. The repetition of "Annabel Lee" and "in this kingdom by the sea" feels like the insistent tolling of a bell at a funeral, leaving the reader in great sadness.Imagery of the poemImage is the soul of poetry as language is the body of poetry. In this poem, Poe uses a lot of images to create a melancholy feeling in the reader. The images of "the kingdom by the sea", "the seraphs" and "the demons" create a mythical remote atmosphere. This implies that there love is so great and beautiful that it could only exist in a remote kingdom by the sea. "Children" implies that their love is pure and innocent, without being aware of the earthly troubles. "The moon" and "the stars" are the images of the universe, which show that all the things in the world make the narrator think of Annabel Lee. "The night tide" and " the sepulcher" create a gothic mood of the poem. "The sounding sea" is used to emphasize the quietness of the kingdom by contrast, and at the same time implies the changing of time in order to show the unchanging love by contrast. Reading the poem, the reader can see the moon, the stars and thekingdom by the sea, can feel the chilling wind from heaven, and can hear the noise of the sounding sea. The poem employs people's senses and imagination to create a picture of a fairy tale scene. ConclusionPoe says in his "The Poetic Principle" that the poem should be short, readable at one sitting. Its chief aim is beauty. "Annabel Lee" is just a good illustration of his poetic theories. The poem consists of 41lines, just readable at one sitting. He also concludes that the death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic in the world. The poem tells the death of Annabel Lee---the loss of a beautiful woman the narrator loves so much,hence producing a melancholy feeling in the reader. Poe stresses rhythm, and defines true poetry as "the rhythmical creation of beauty". His style is traditional, employing regular rhyme schemes and all kinds of poetic devices to compose the poem in order to achieve a musical effect. Unlike his other works, "Annabel Lee" is easy to read, using simple words and simple form creating a simple fairy tale.。