"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe

Every time I hear the name Edgar Allen Poe used, I automatically think of creepiness and darkness. Edgar Allen Poe is a very well known poet for poems such Annabel Lee, and I remember him as writing the play The Telltale Heart. Concerning Annabel Lee, one of the elements of the poem that makes it extra creepy is the use of rhyme.

Annabel Lee has a dark topic and is creepy even without the use of rhyming. The topic being the author's love for Annabel Lee and her dying is very sad and dark. As part of the poem, every other line rhymes (ABCB pattern), except for the very end where there are two couplets (AABB pattern). The incorporation of rhyme in the poem makes it sound like a lullaby; there is a very clear, simple meter, and if you changed the words to something more light, it could very well be a children's poem.

Making a dark poem sound like a lullaby adds to the creepiness of the poem. Usually, one would associate a lullaby with a baby or small child and therefore life, yet the poem is very obviously about death and mortality. Bringing together the feelings of life with the feelings of death is very chilling in that it shows how close the two are. The lullaby-like rhyming of the poem forces the reader to recognize death as a part of life as opposed to some far off thing that only happens to certain people.

While the combination of lively rhyming with a deathly theme may seem ironic, but in reality is like shining a light on mortality of man; what's creepier than that?