Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” represents the death of Annabel Lee. The poem describes the underlying love the speaker has for Annabel Lee, which began many years ago in an unnamed “kingdom by the sea.” In his poem, Poe makes use of a lot of poetic devices to enhance the reader’s understanding of his deep affection for his beloved Annabel Lee, thus making it the best poem in the world. 

In this poem, the rhyming structure plays a big role. Poe’s main purpose for using rhythm/rhyme is to introduce a new method of expressing the speaker’s grief. The name “Annabel Lee” is an important part of the rhyming scheme throughout the poem. Poe further enhances the rhythm of the poem with alliteration in “[b]ut we loved with a love that was more than love” (Poe), which emphasizes to the reader, the strong relationship between the two lovers. There is a rhyming link in “chilling” and “killing” (lines 25 and 26) which exaggerates the horror of Annabel Lee’s death. The poem’s rhyme scheme begins with an ababcb pattern but as the poem moves along, it gets more complicated, ending with the pattern lbmbnnbb in the last stanza. As the lines increase in length and number in the last stanza, its dramatic pitch also intensifies. His grievance for Annabel Lee also escalates, thus depicting Poe’s unconditional love for her. The final stanza has an internal rhyming scheme, which mimics the rhythm of the waves ultimately serving as Annabel Lee’s sepulchre, and the speaker’s mental condition. The rhythm of the poem is mostly written in iambic and anapestic feet, alternating between tetrameter and trimeter. However, the word “chilling” in lines fifteen and twenty-five is used to disturb the rhythm and startle the reader by highlighting the death of the speaker’s loved one. Thus, Edgar Allan Poe’s use of rhythm is very important in understanding the essence of the speaker’s love for Annabel Lee.

Even though “Annabel Lee” is not exactly a ballad, Poe referred to it as one because it utilizes repetition of words and phrases purposely to create a mournful effect. Edgar Allen Poe uses assonance several times in the poem by repeating the “e” sound. In the first stanza, Line 2,4 and 6 ends with sea, Lee, and me respectively. The other five stanzas also contain the repeated sound of the long “e.” Another example of assonance is from Stanza 6 “[a]nd so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side/Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride…” (Poe). Furthermore, Poe also heavily relies on alliteration, for instance “it was stronger by far than the love/Of those who were older than we- /Of many far wiser than we-.(Poe). All of these sound devices help to create more pleasing sound patterns. Line 21 uses alliteration in repeating the “h” sound suggesting the blowing of wind. Between the fifth and sixth stanzas, “Of the beautiful Annabel Lee” is repeated thrice to draw the reader’s attention to this line.