The "Annabel Lee" Blues: Re-Reading Edgar Allan Poe's Rhythm and Rhyme Scheme

In "Traces in 'Annabel Lee' of Allan Cunningham's Poem" (1986), Burton Pollin asserts that Edgar Allan Poe used "the very popular ballad 'Lily of Nithsdale" (134) as inspiration for his own "Annabel Lee" (1849). Pollin further asserts that Allan Cunningham's ballad form and the motif of angelic envy "lead directly into" Poe's poem (134). Granted, "Annabel Lee" (1849) has a distinct sprung rhythm comprised along with the convention of rhymes in the even-numbered lines which gives evidence to considering "Annabel Lee" as a ballad. Poe himself called it such (Thomas & Jackson 802). Pollin begins his article by explaining Poe's views on plagiarism thus implying that the poet himself was more than inspired by Cunningham: "[Poe] cogently explained why a rich tissue of derived strands, even in his poems such as 'Annabel Lee,' is to be expected from a master poet—and excused" (133). Although Poe was thinking in musical terms when composing "Annabel Lee," the structure of the poems counters a mere lifting of conventions from Cunningham's "Lily of Nithsdale." It actually reveals an intricate and complex prosody, for the structure of the poem is similar to the songs which were precursors to the blues.

Cunningham's "The Lily of Nithsdale" is a ballad of three stanzas dealing with the death of the narrative persona's "lassie" (1, 5, 9) whom either God takes because she is too pure to be living away from Heaven (3–4) or because "an angel fell in luve wi' her,/An' took her frae us a'" (11–12). Based on the second instance and the balladic structure, Pollin asserts that Poe borrowed heavily from this poem. The metrical evidence supports the contention that one should read "Annabel Lee" in terms of its inherent musical qualities. Poe's poetry is fraught with emotion which lends itself to music. In fact, in addition to he himself calling "Annabel Lee" a "ballad," the first publication of "Annabel Lee" in 1849 was signed "Ludwig" (Stovall 287). With the question of the soul of language in mind—plus the allusion to Ludwig von Beethoven—not reading "Annabel Lee" as a musical lyric would be too coincidental, too uncanny.

However, to claim the poem is more than inspiration is a bit of a stretch. The structure of "The Lily of Nithsdale" is uniform. It keeps a consistent ABCB rhyme scheme, and the total number of syllables in each stanza are similar (33, 35, 31—respectively). Like Cunningham's poem, the musical nature of "Annabel Lee" is apropos because a scansion reveals a combination of anapests and iambs which equate to the simple quarter and eighth note values found in folk ballads. Very rarely do these use shorter (sixteeth) or longer (half) note-values. However, the similarities end there.

First, the meter of "Annabel Lee" lacks the consistent rhythmical pattern of Cunningham's poem since each stanza (expanded from three to six) has a different number of syllables (fifty-five, fifty-two, sixty-five, fifty-two, sixty-eight, and eighty-four respectively). Although two have the same number, they are not consistent in pattern: the second stanza has nine syllables in its first line; the fourth has ten. Poe alters the pace and metrical feel of the poem beyond that of a mere sprung rhythm, such as found in "The Lily of Nithsdale." Furthermore, it becomes an important aspect to the Poe's narrative because the words consistently stressed throughout the entirety of the poem are references either to the narrator (me, I), his love (both by name and pronoun), or combinations of the two (we, love).

Those instances in the poem where the long-short feet occur not only cause a disruption in the flow of the rhythm but also emphasize key thematic points or images. The first instance of this occurs in lines eleven and twelve: "With a love that the winged seraphs of Heaven/Coveted her and me" (Poe). The first contains two anapests and an iamb followed by three trochees (the third begins line twelve). This jarring interruption in the flow...