Looking at “The Raven” & “Annabel Lee”
 Page 360
 Before writing “The Raven,” Poe asked himself the
question, “Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the
universal understanding of mankind, is most melancholy?”
 His answer: death.
 He then decided that the most poetic version of
melancholy is the death of a beautiful woman. This topic is
what the speaker ponders in “The Raven,” and his sorrow is
embodied by the poem’s title character.
 Like much of Poe’s writing, the poem explores one aspect
of the dark side of human nature—in this case, what Poe
called “that species of despair which delights in selftorture.”
 Poe wrote a poem titled “Lenore”
 Guy de Vere cannot weep for his dead beloved Lenore.
He gives an elegy in which he berates everyone for
loving her wealth and hating her pride, suggesting that
people had wished her ill and effectively killed her.
The narrator asks him not to speak in this manner,
although Lenore has taken away Hope in her death.
Guy responds that he does not mourn because her soul
has ascended to Heaven.
 http://dotsub.com/view/58591756-7128-488c-bfe9-
22463d46d907
 What six things does the
narrator say/ask the raven?
 What is the setting of “The
Raven”?
 Why does the narrator say
“nevermore” in stanza 13?
 How does the setting contribute
to the mood of the poem?
 What does the raven symbolize?
 What does the raven’s shadow
symbolize? (See last stanza)
 Who is Lenore and where is she
now?
 Describe the change in the
narrator’s emotions throughout
the poem.
 Give an example and
explanation of each from the
poem: 1) gothic colors, 2) gothic
weather, 3) gothic seasons, 4)
gothic setting, 5) gothic
romance.
 Follow along with handout:
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other
thought
Than 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
loveI and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and meYes!- 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
love
Of those who were older than weOf many far wiser than weAnd neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing
me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright
eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the
side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my
bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
 Give an example and
explanation of each:





Gothic setting
Gothic weather
Gothic seasons
Gothic colors
Gothic romance
 What happened to
Annabel Lee? Use the text
to explain.
 Who do you think Annabel
Lee was to Poe? Why?
 Use context clues to define
the following:
 Winged seraphs of heaven
 Her highborn kinsman
 Demons down under the
sea
 Sepulcher there by the sea
 Give three examples from
the poem that state this is a
love poem.