英语诗歌赏析的论文

宁波大学答题纸

（2010 —2011 学年第1 学期）

课号：课程名称：改卷教师：杨成虎

学号：093070031 姓名：解瑶得分：

Appreciation of Annabel Lee

Annabel Lee is the last complete poem composed by American author Edgar Allan Poe and published two days after the death of Poe. Like many of Poe’s poems, it explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. The narrator, who fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were young, has a love for her so strong that even angels are jealous. He retains his love for her even after her death. There has been debate over whom, if anyone, was the inspiration for ―Annabel Lee‖. Though many women have been suggested, Poe’s wi fe Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe is one of the more credible candidates. It this essay, I decided to explore this wonderful poem through the following four parts：

1. An Introduction of Edgar Allan Poe

1.1 Poe’s life

Poe’s life was a series of disasters. He was born in Boston, one of three children of a pair of travelling actors. His father deserted the family and soon died when Poe was only one year old. The next year, his mother died, too, leaving Poe to a prosperous merchant, Joan Allan. Although Poe adopted Allan as a middle name, the foster father never adopted him legally. In fact, the father had bitter quarrels with Poe and refused to pay for his college fees. Addicted to drinking and gambling, Poe was soon expelled by his foster father. Poe left the home in a fury and joined army. Not being able to endure the strict rules and realizing that is was not a right place for a literary man to seek freedom, Poe deliberately violated a few minor regulations of the academy and was soon dismissed. He went to live with his aunt in Baltimore, and began to devote himself to literary creation. He married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia, in 1835. Though Poe’s marriage to Virginia was originally partially for money, Virginia’s death in1847

caused great pain and suffering to Poe. He continued to write, but his involvement with several women admirers brought about tremendous spiritual burden so that Poe attempted o commit a suicide. With no effect, Poe engaged himself with his childhood sweetheart, Mrs. Shelton, in 1849, on the promise that he would quit alcohol. On the way to bring Mrs. Shelton to the wedding, Poe stopped in Baltimore where he was found unconscious in the street, obviously and alcohol-induced coma, Four days later, Poe died in the hospital and was later buried in Baltimore.

1.2 Poe’s works

Poe, in fact, wrote nearly seventy short works of fiction. He is highly reputed by creating the detective story genre and transforming the Gothic mystery tale of the Romantic Period into the modern horror or murder stories which centered in the outlying regions of human mind and experience. But he also wrote several comic and satirical pieces, literary parodies, sketches, and experimental stories, including the Descent into the Maelstrom, and his novella, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. His most famous poems---The raven, Ulalume, The Bells, The City in the sea---were enormously influential. These famous verses were behind a powerful wave of enthusiasm for Poe that arose among the leading writers of Europe during his own lifetime, spread thereafter around the world, and was recognized through the ―discovery‖ of existential ―human condition‖ themes in his short storied generations later. For some readers, Poe’s poetry probably is not worth a second glance. They find it over-derived, sentimental and redundant in theme, and too technical---that is , obsessed with meter, rhyme, and poetic stylistics. But Poe is the poet who always reminding us of just how strange it is to be human and the levels in which the mind can be stimulated to indulge in this strangeness.

1.3 Poe’s Theory

As for Poe’s criticism of fiction and verse, there is an intersection with the often-overlooked depth of his work. Poe developed a theory of composition that he applied to both his short storied and his poems. His most basic principle was that insofar as short fiction and poetry were concerned, the writer should aim at creating a single and total psychological spiritual effect upon the reader. The theme or plot of the article is always subordinate to the