Comparative Analysis of Poems: Annabel Lee and A Special World

Whether it’s the poem “a special world” written in the 21th century, or the poem “Annabel Lee” written in the 19th century, they both centered on the topic of love. However, authors’ distinct usage of words made these two poems so different in the attitude toward love. While “a special world” triumphs the joyousness of love, the “Annabel Lee” mourns over the heartbreaking fairy tale. Throughout the poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, we can see the idea of death and love is conveyed by a grievous and melancholy tone, and one aspect that makes this tone melancholy is the figurative language. He used personification to describe how the wind killed his lover. “That the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.” By giving the wind the human quality as a murderer, the wind became a much more negative connotation, and created a far more vivid picture of Annabel Lee’s death than just simply written she froze to death. Poe’s emphasize on Annabel Lee’s death made the readers impossible to not to grieve over the lost lover, thus, the tone is proved to be grievous. Then in the line 21 to 22, Poe used another type of figurative language, “The angels, not half as happy in heaven, went envying her and me…” By compares their happiness to that of the Angels in heaven, he showed that their love was even greater than the holiest beings of all. And once again, the readers have to stop and felt pity for this valuable, but lost love. By using figurative language, Poe created such heartbreaking tone in this tragedy fairytale. In the Poem “a special world” by Sheelagh Lennon, the tone is optimistic and joyous. Sheelagh’s use of figurative language greatly affects the tone. In the line 5-6, Shleelagh described the bond between her and her lover, but in a figurative way. “Like silken thread it holds us fast, Bonds like this are meant to last”. By comparing the bond to the silken thread, showed author’s attitude toward her lover, she thinks nothing could break the bond, fragile but solid and firm, just like the silken thread. Then in the last paragraph, “It wraps us up in its cocoon, And holds us fiercely in its womb.” The “it” in the sentence is also referring the bond, words “warps” and “holds” grant the bond a human quality, made the tone more fantasy. The symbol cocoon is the enlighten finish in this poem, it symbolized the bond will lock them together, like the cocoon does to the pupa. These entirely showed author’s confident in the relationship, which make the word “optimistic” best suit to tone. Figurative language made the poems came to life, let the readers had a better comprehend on the tone. Both poems used figurative language brilliantly, conveyed the tone clearly, and illustrated the beauty and melancholy of love.