What Literary Techinques Are Used in Annabel Lee?
Some of the literary devices used in the poem “Annabel Lee” include personification, repetition, internal rhyme and alliteration. Published in 1849, “Annabel Lee” was Edgar Allan Poe’s last complete poem.
In literature, personification means to attribute human characteristics to something that is non-human. In the fourth stanza of “Annabel Lee,” Poe uses personification to describe the wind. He writes “The wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.” Because the moon cannot actually kill a person, this is an example of personification.
Repetition is found throughout this poem. Repetition in poetry simply means the repeating of a word in a line, verse or stanza. One phrase that is repeated in “Annabel Lee” is “Kingdom by the Sea.” This phrase ties the story together and makes the poem flow well.
Poems can have either end rhymes or internal rhymes. In “Annabel Lee,” Poe uses a lot of internal rhymes. One example is “And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes.” Alliteration is a lot like internal rhyming in that it helps with the cadence of the entire piece. Poe uses quite a bit of this technique in many of his writings. An example in this particular poem is in the fourth stanza, where he uses the letter “h” a number of times.
