Edgar Allan Poe(try)
Poetry Newsletter 1-6-06
Welcome to the Poetry Newsletter, a place for poets and poetry lovers to read, learn, and be inspired.
"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind."
–William James (1842-1910)
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Daily Poetry
Annabel Lee
By 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 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 love-
I 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 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 love
Of 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 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.
In this famous poem by Poe, the haunting refrain plays a large part in the overall emotional effect. A refrain is a word or phrase that is repeated throughout the poem. But unlike anaphora, which is the repetition of a word or phrase for rhetorical or practical reasons, the refrain is related directly to the main idea of the poem.
Most of us are familiar with the word “refrain” from music. The refrain is the series of lines that are repeated between each different verse in a song.
Poe uses this technique in other poems as well, including “The Raven.” A tenderly worded refrain can give a death poem a chilling and mournful feeling. A threatening refrain, as in the case of “The Raven,” gives a poem a strange and supernatural feeling. But a refrain can also be joyful and celebratory, depending on your needs.
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Poetry Lesson
Refrain is a stanza, line, part of a line, or phrase, generally pertinent to the central topic, which is repeated verbatim, usually at regular intervals throughout a poem, most often at the end of a stanza.
Example: This selected stanza from Poe’s “The Raven” is a great example of the refrain. Several stanzas end with the same word:
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!–prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted–
On this home by horror haunted–tell me truly, I implore:
Is there–is there balm in Gilead?–tell me–tell me I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."