Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, Annabel Lee, And The Bells

Edgar Allan Poe was a famous American poet, and many of his works are still read in classrooms today. Some of his most famous works include “The Raven”, “Annabel Lee”, and “The Bells”. Across these three poems, there are multiple literary devices used. Poe’s use of literary devices adds depth and meaning to the poems. Without devices such as symbolism and imagery, the poems wouldn’t have any meaning that is directly connected to Poe’s life. Poe’s poems were often about a struggle he was having in his life, or about a woman dying. Poe wouldn’t have been able to write amazing poems without the use of literary devices such as symbolism, personification, and imagery. In Poe’s most famous poem, The Raven, the most obvious form of symbolism is the raven, symbolizing death. The raven is known as “The Devil’s Bird” because of it’s ugly and dark appearance, which helps it symbolize death. In the poem, the bird is often perched high and mocks the man in the poem by saying “nevermore” as if he were a broken record. The
reappearance of the bird and the repeating of “nevermore” is a constant reminder of the man that death is always lingering, and waiting. The bird is important to the poem because it reminds the man that death is inescapable, even for himself. The bird also symbolizes grief, because the man is reminded that his love is dead. When the raven says “nevermore” to the man, it is a reminder that he will not see Lenore. Something symbolizing death in Poe’s poems is a recurring meaning. In the poem Annabel Lee, the poem as a whole symbolizes Poe’s life. Annabel Lee herself symbolizes Poe’s love, Virginia. Annabel Lee was created to be close to the person Virginia was. Annabel also stands for purity and beauty because in the poem, Poe says that she was young and beautiful and nothing could change his mind about what Poe thinks about her. The sea symbolizes the emptiness that Poe feels after he lost the love of his life. In the poem, evil things live under the sea, which makes the sea dark and scary. The sepulchre in the poem symbolizes death, and how it was inevitable for Annabel Lee to die. The only way Poe can say that Annabel is dead is by talking about the sepulchre. This poem was Poe’s last poem he completed before he died, and because it was about losing the love of his life, it was ironic. It was ironic because all of Poe’s life after Virginia died, he was always depressed, and this poem he wrote was the final complete poem he wrote. The symbolism of everything was important to the meaning of this poem because it helped Poe talk about how it felt to lose the love of his life. Without using symbolism, Poe wouldn’t have been able to express his emptiness in a way for other people to better understand. Poe wanted to express this life moment in poetry. In the poem The Bells, there are three different types of bells. The silver bells Poe is talking about symbolizes happiness. Silver bells are rung around Christmas time, and Christmas is a happy time. The silver bells are supposed to be a cheerful image. Gold bells are mentioned next. Gold bells symbolize wealth and love (as in weddings). The gold bells were supposed to sound delightful. The next set of bells mentioned is bronze bells. The bronze bells symbolize fire alarm bells. When these bells are heard, people get scared and know that something is wrong because of the way they sound. The last set of bells are the iron bells. Iron is a heavy metal, and when Poe uses this metal for bells, it symbolizes how “lifeless and heavy and cold the world is” (Shmoop. Iron Bells). In the poem the iron bells also symbolize sadness and death. Without the sets of bells having their own symbolism, the poem wouldn’t change intensities. In the beginning it’s soft with the silver bells, but by the time the iron bells are mentioned the feeling in the poem gets miserable. Poe wanted to have a dramatic change from the beginning of the poem to the end, and he used symbolism to do so.
Personification is another poetic device Poe often used. In The Raven, every time the bird says “nevermore”, personification is being used because birds can’t talk. By giving the raven the ability to talk, Poe intensifies the poem. Because the raven symbolizes grief, the fact that it replies to the man’s questions adds emotion into the poem. The man hears and sees death, and his own grief. This makes the man more emotional (especially when his love, Lenore, is brought up). If personification wasn’t used in this poem, the raven wouldn’t speak, which means that the man wouldn’t have gone so crazy when the response to all his questions were “nevermore” because the raven wouldn’t have added emotion and frustration to the man.
Personification is also used in Annabel Lee. “The wind came of the cloud by night, / chilling and killing my Annabel Lee”, is one example. This is the first time in the poem where Poe mentions Annabel’s death. Another example is: “A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling / My beautiful Annabel Lee”. These lines are given personification to show that Annabel died in “a chilling cold”. When Poe uses this in the poem, it adds emotion. Poe wants to put the emphasis on Annabel’s death, and how not only the death was painful for Poe, but it was painful for her as well (Annabel in the poem but Virginia in real life). Poe wanted her death to be sympathized with.
Personification can also be found in The Bells.
The bronze set of bells is personified to be screaming. They are screaming because Poe personified them to be, and when the bronze is heard it means there is danger. In this case the danger is fire. The bronze set of bells are also “filled with fear” by shrieking. Poe personifies the iron bells when he says “To the throbbing of the bells” and “To the sobbing of the bells” and “To the moaning and the groaning of the bells”. Poe personified the bells to help describe the sound of them. The iron bells are the set of bells that sound the ugliest and most out of tune, and by using personification Poe gave a description as to what they sound like. If Poe hadn’t used personification, he wouldn’t have been able to easily describe what the bells sounded like. The easiest way to understand what an inanimate object sounds like is to give it human characteristics. Poe described the bells by using
personification.
Another poetic device that is in The Raven, is imagery. When Poe talks about the curtains in the room the man is in, he is describing the setting. Poe also uses imagery when the man talks about the “black bird”. Other than calling the raven a “black bird”, the man describes it’s eyes as a demon dreaming. When he describes the bird in such a way, he is saying that because he believes that there is a dark side of the bird (this helps the reader know that the bird symbolizes death). Even when Poe describes the bird as being “Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door”, he is using imagery. The use of imagery in this poem is important because it shows how evil the bird is meant to be (by being compared to a demon dreaming).
Imagery is also a very powerful literary device used in Annabel Lee. In the beginning of the poem, Poe is showing the love that was shared with the narrator and Annabel. In the lines with personification (as mentioned earlier in this paper), Poe shows imagery to help give an understanding to how Annabel died. The description Poe gives is “chilling” and “killing”, and both words have a harsh tone to them. This implies that Annabel’s death was harsh and wasn’t pleasant. If Poe hadn’t used imagery in this poem, he wouldn’t have been able to express Annabel’s death with beauty. He also wouldn’t have been able to write about the love that the two had between each other (ultimately about himself and Virginia). Imagery was used to show love and death through Poe’s feelings.
It is easy to picture the bells that Poe describes because of his use of imagery. In each section, Poe describes what the bells look like. He used the words “twinkle”, “clanging”, and “groaning” just to name a few. In the third section with the bronze bells, Poe repeats that the bells are shrieking. In the last paragraph Poe uses a great deal of imagery. “They are Ghouls- / And their king it is who tolls” is imagery used to help describe the darkness of the last stanza. Poe’s whole point of uses the different kind of bells was to get darker and darker each time, and the imagery of each level made it possible to be able to get to the meaning of the iron bells (death). The iron bells represent death and Poe used imagery throughout the poem to describe each section (and it eventually led to the meaning being death).
Edgar Allan Poe was known for using many poetic devices in his poems. Personification, symbolism, and imagery were just a couple of the devices he was known for. Without the use of these devices Poe’s work wouldn’t have any meaning. Poe usually used symbolism to write about death coming for him, or the loss of a loved woman (usually Virginia). Personification and imagery helped Poe describe the meaning and sometimes the feelings of things. Poe wanted sympathy to be felt in some of his poems, so the use of personification helped him describe the real situation of things (the death of Annabel, for example). Poetic devices in Poe’s poems were consistent throughout these poems. Death was a symbol in each poem. Personification was used in each poem to add emotion and to build sympathy. Imagery in each poem was used to set the tone of each poem, and to describe something in each poem (the bird, the death of Annabel Lee, and how the bells rung in different ways based on whatever metal they were made out of). Edgar Allan Poe will always be known for his use of literary devices, and because of the way he used them, he made the meaning to his poems unforgettable.