How Does Edgar Allan Poe Contribute To Death

Death is inevitable, as it is part of the circle of life. Death leaves people with a pain that no individual person can fix. It forces people to grieve and suffer but ultimately heal with time. Edgar Allan Poe was very familiar with the death of loved ones, as his mother, father, stepmother, and wife died during his lifetime. As some may turn to unhealthy methods of coping with death, Poe dove into himself to create beautiful poems that exude his feelings. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” the narrator’s mental state is developed through the use of symbolism. Born January 19, 1809 to Elizabeth and David Poe is one of the world’s most well-known poets, Edgar Allan Poe. He was the middle child out of three children. Growing up, life for Poe …show more content…
Other speculations are Frances Osgood, a former flame of Poe’s, Nancy Richmond, fellow poet, and Sarah Helen Whitman, to whom Poe was briefly engaged to (Johnson “Poetry for Students.”) Of all the possibilities, Virginia’s case seems to be the strongest, due to the narrator emphasizing that “She was a child and I was a child” (Poe “Annabel Lee.”) This makes sense because Virginia had just turned 13 when she and Poe were married. Frances Osgood was a poet and very good friend of both Poe and his wife. In relation to their “long and intimate” exchange is thought by some scholars as a reasonable muse for the lovely “Annabel Lee” (Johnson “Poetry for Students.”) The case for Nancy Richmond is small and insignificant, as she was only part of Poe’s life for a short amount of time and did not seem to leave an impact on him. Sarah Whitman, former lover to Poe, was thought to be a valid possibility for the inspiration of “Annabel Lee” due to the pair’s brief engagement at the end of 1848 (Johnson “Poetry for …show more content…
Emotional symbolism is found in a great number of Poe’s poems. It is almost always connected with death, like in “Annabel Lee.” The poem concludes on a note of overpowering emotion which is not symbolic or romantic, but entirely human, like a heart-rending sorrow which cannot be contained (Zayed “The Symbolism of Poems.”) The theme of "Annabel Lee" one that is commonly used by Poe, as it is used in several of his earlier compositions; themes such as love, horror, anxiety, fantasy, all highlighting Poe’s strange condition of his mind (Lerner “Edgar Allan Poe.”) This is an idealized view of the love and loss Poe held throughout his life, from the time before he met Virginia to the time after her death. Poe’s poetic genius was tied to a distorted personal life was destined to affect his feeling and thinking, ultimately being showcased in his work (Lerner “Edgar Allan Poe.”) In "Annabel Lee," the narrator celebrates this true love when he says "we loved with a love that was more than love” (Poe “Annabel Lee.”) Poe repeats the word "love" three times to demonstrate how little the word accurately describes these feelings (Zayed “The Symbolism of Poems.”) Even though Annabel and the narrator were young, he contends that their feelings outweighed those of others. Even