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In "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe, what made life meaningful to the narrator of the poem?

In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee,” there is only one thing the narrator finds worth living for – his Annabel Lee. Annabel herself was a maiden who lived only to love and be loved by the narrator, and his besotted language would suggest that his approach to life was the same – he refers to their love as one to stir even the angels to jealousy.


The setting of the poem also shows that Annabel Lee is the narrator’s main focus in life; whether she is alive or dead, he remains with her on the sea. Regardless of any kind of hope or hopelessness, it is just he and his Annabel Lee, as if there are no other people on the earth. His very soul is part of hers – nothing can “ever dissever” his soul from Annabel Lee’s (stanza 5).


Finally, the narrator calls his long lost maiden his “life” in the final stanza. What the narrator finds worth living for is his very life – his darling Annabel Lee.

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