The World of the Writer refers to the background of the author—his life and the society he lived in. Although not applicable to all analyses, this approach in literary interpretation is probably the most basic method of analyzing literary pieces. Either consciously or unconsciously, the author writes a literary work based or inspired by his emotions and experiences. If there is an approach that a novice critique must begin with, it is the World of the Writer.
The example we are going to critique using the World of the Writer is Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee.
ANNABEL LEE
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most well-known writers in American Literature. With a life dominated by tragedies, it is no surprise that his works show what we might call as the Gothic side of Romanticism. Gloom and fascination with death dominates his pieces.
In Annabel Lee, we find a romantic and poignant poem that addresses the tragic story of a young woman and her untimely demise. Presumably, the persona is the lover who is mourning the death of this young woman. The persona tells the story of their young love that was cut short by Annabel Lee’s death. He also expresses an undying love for his beloved.
If we are going to read Edgar Allan Poe’s life and relate it to the poem, there are two things that might explain the creation of this piece: (1) all the significant women in Poe’s life died young—his mother when he was merely three years old and his wife, of tuberculosis or as they called it back then, consumption; and his relationship with his wife who was considerably younger than he was.
We will concentrate on the second fact in elaborating the meaning of the poem. Here are a few facts about Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Clemm:
1. Virginia Clemm was the first cousing of Poe. After a fall-out with his foster father, John Allan, Poe moved in with his aunt, Maria Clemm and the then-seven year-old Virginia, in Baltimore.
2. The couple were married when Virginia was only 13 years old and Poe was 27. Despite the age gap, the married life of the couple was often portrayed by many biographer’s as affectionate:
“One of his [Poe’s] severe chroniclers says: ‘It is believed by some that he really loved his wife; if he did, he had a strange way of showing his affection.’ Now it appears to me that he showed his affection in the rightway, by endeavoring to make his companion happy. According to the opportunities he possessed, he supplied her with the comforts and luxuries of life. He kept a piano to gratify her taste for music, at a time when his income could scarcely afford such an indulgence. I never knew him to give her an unkind word, and doubt if they ever had any disagreement. that Virginia loved him, I am quite certain, for she was by far too artless to assume the appearance of an affection which she did not feel” (Lambert A. Wilmer, 1866)
3. Virginia contracted tuberculosis and died in January in 1847 when she was 24 years old. Her untimely death affected Poe very much:
Based on these facts we can safely presume that Annabel Lee is indeed a personification of Virginia Clemm and the persona is Edgar Allan Poe himself, mourning wistfully for his young wife.
We start out with the opening lines of the poem which introduce the two as:
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
Indeed, the setting (In this kingdom by the sea) might have been romanticized but the remaining lines, especially the first one (I was a child and she was a child) reflected the circumstance of the two when they first met. Their intense feelings for each other are also portrayed (But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee—).
However, the happiness of the two was short-lived, since:
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
A pathos is created in this part of the poem. Annabel Lee meets her demise when her “highborn kinsmen came and bore her away…” because as the next stanza suggested that “The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me—”. This signifies, of course the death of the character which is but another romanticized form of the real-life circumstance in which Poe’s young wife died of (tuberculosis or consumption as they used to call it back then).
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
These remaining stanzas of the poem now reflect the persona’s (Poe) feelings regarding the death of his beloved. His devotion to her is reflected wistfully and passionately that he claims that not even death could put a divide between them (And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee). And as the last stanza suggests, the grief of the persona is without bounds that he “lie(s) down by the side Of my darling…In her sepulchre there by the sea…”. This resembles Poe’s feelings as the testimony below shows:
“When his wife died Mr. Poe took it might hard. She was buried up in the old Dutch cemetery but they afterward moved her to Baltimore . . . . He used to cry over her grave every day and kept it green with flowers.” (Mrs. Rebecca Cromwell, a former Fordham neighbour)
Annabel Lee might give off a fairy-tale like and even unrealistic quality because of how it was written, but when we consider the World of the Writer, we will see that the author based the skeleton of the piece on a significant experience in his life.
* * * * *
So this is how we do an analysis of a literary piece using the World of the Writer-method. Here are some tips to remember about this approach:
Read as much as you can about the author’s background and try to look for connections between the author’s life and his work.
Not everything needs to coincide. We have what we might call “semi-autobiographical” since not all facts from the author’s life are presented as they really are in the literary piece.
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