Annabel Lee and Romeo and Juliet - Essay Example

here 30 August Love with a Twist Love. On the surface it is a seemingly benign and innocent emotion, but when misapplied, it can bring about bitter and even lethal consequences. This is seen to be the case across various forms of literature, including Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “Annabel Lee,” and William Shakespeare’s tragic play, Romeo and Juliet. Both literary works are very similar in their portrayal of love, as the authors explore how an extreme fascination and obsession with this feeling leads to pain, resentment, and even death. Even though some may deduce from these pieces that love is tainted by nature, when holding it up to the biblical standard – of which Poe and Shakespeare were quite familiar – the love described was not perfect at all compared to the benchmark: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered… It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,” (NIV Study Bible, 1 Cor. 13:4-7). Various themes of love – as being excessive, covetous, unbridled, misunderstood, immortal, and doomed – are seen through the characters and their depictions in both poem and play. Many parents instruct their offspring to do things in moderation – and not in excess. Romeo and Juliet, as well as the narrator in “Annabel Lee” would have been wise to take this advice. In Poe’s poem, he describes the tragic loss of a lover from his youth ? over whom he cannot stop pining. But this was no ordinary love, as the narrator illustrates it with such intensity that it actually surmounts the barriers of love, “But we loved with a love that was more than love- / I and my Annabel Lee,” (Poe, lines 9-10). This excessive love proves later in the poem to give rise to an unwholesome infatuation with the lover – something which is also seen in Shakespeare’s play. Romeo and Juliet similarly display their love for one another as being excessive. This classic tragedy centers around the youth of two rival families falling in love with one another, who both end of dying because of complications arising out of new conflicts that the relationship sparked between their kin. Soon after Romeo and Juliet meet, the heroine reciprocates her new lover’s adoration, “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, / My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite,” (Shakespeare, 2.2.140-142). From this dialogue between the lovers, the reader recognizes that Juliet’s affection for Romeo has gone overboard to the point that both lovers are drowning in their mutual adoration. She even apologizes to Romeo later for her directness in expressing the depth of her love, (Raffel xvii). In both poem and play, the love expressed by the characters is readily identified as extreme and over-the-top, which is witnessed later as evolving into unhealthy and suicidal infatuations. The parallels between the depictions of love in “Annabel Lee” and Rome and Juliet do not end there. Both boast of the love between lovers as being so intense that even heavenly beings, including angels, were covetous of their love. Poe puts this into context, saying that he and Annabel Lee love each other “With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven / Coveted her and me,” (Poe, 11-12). He believes that their love surpassed angelic love, “The angels, not half so happy in heaven, / Went envying her and me,” (Poe, 21-22). The poet then takes it a step further, claiming that the heavenly hosts envied their love so much that they took Annabel Lee away from him,” (Barger 711). Not to be outdone, Shakespeare also allows the demise of his tragic couple to fall on the shoulders of heavenly beings, as Juliet is quick to blame them when she believes her lover is dead, “Can heaven be so envious?” (Shakespeare, 3.2.45). Instead of accepting accountability for their rashness in love, the couple often accuses spiritual beings ? and their jealousy over the love they share ? for their demise. Both Poe and Shakespeare often appeal to divine fate and angelic covetousness of earthly love as being the primary force behind the termination of their couples’ passionate love affairs. Another key dimension of young couples’ love for each other in both works is that it is consistently portrayed as unbridled, if not foolish. Poe is quick to judge the love in his relationship as being far superior to the love witnessed in more mature couples, “But our love it was stronger by far than the love / Of those who were older than we- / Of many far wiser than we-,” (Poe, 27-29). But was the love they had truly greater, or was it in actuality just more unrestrained, immature, and irrational? Making such a assertion about his love’s “superiority” over all others’ in and of itself questions the poets’ objectivity and maturity – similar to a child’s claim that everyone is jealous of him because his father is stronger than everybody else’s. Similarly, Romeo puts his adoration for Juliet above all else, idolizing her beauty and comparing it to celestial bodies, “The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, / As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven,” (Shakespeare, 2.2.21-22). Juliet’s response to her lover’s bold declaration of his self-proclaimed unwavering love, demonstrates that she is worried that Romeo might not be as stalwart and dedicated as he appears, “O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, / That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable,” (Shakespeare, 2.2.114-116). Having only known Juliet for hours, Romeo is instantly making perpetual oaths to his new lover, which is ironic, since he was pining over his unrequited love for Rosaline earlier in the day, when he cried out to his companion, “Under love’s heavy burden do I sink,” (Shakespeare, 1.4.22). Indeed, the rash, inflamed, and immature love depicted in both Poe’s and Shakespeare’s works is not the ideal love laid out in the book of Corinthians, and, in fact, it is warned against by the Apostle Paul later on in the New Testament, “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart,” (NIV Study Bible, 2 Tim. 2.22). Romeo proves to be in direct contradiction to the Christian faith he pronounces, and his mother would undoubtedly give him the same advice that a queen in the Old Testament shared, “O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, do not spend you strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings,” (NIV Study Bible, Prov. 31.2-3). Because Romeo poured all of his strength into pursing Juliet, he ended up becoming a murderer and a banished outcast, and never lived to succeed his father, Lord Montague. It is readily seen that the lovers in both the poet’s and the playwright’s works displayed a young, foolish, and unbridled love toward one another, as opposed to the perfect and mature love they tried to portray. The poem and play also share a common theme of misunderstood love – which is interfered with by elders. Even though it is only after her death that a family member takes the body of Poe’s lover away, he views this relative as coming between their relationship, “A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling / My beautiful Annabel Lee; / So that her highborn kinsman came / And bore her away from me, (Poe, 15-18). This older relative is portrayed as a symbol of interference between Poe and his love, and he is disturbed that the meddlesome older generation from which he came does not understand the love he and Annabel had for one another, (The Highborn Kinsman). This unwanted interference is also displayed in Romeo and Juliet, as the tragic couple must always do everything they can so that their relationship evades their parents’ detection, as the hero tells his love, “My life were better ended by their hate, / Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love,” (Shakespeare, 2.2.82-83). Romeo is telling Juliet that he would rather be killed by her family ? once they found out about his love for her ? than live without her love. This resentment of parental disruption – and lack of knowledge of their passionate relationship ? rises a notch when Juliet’s parents insist that she marry a man they believe to be more suitable for her – the young Paris. In both works, being misunderstood by elders ? coupled with the unwanted interference by older generations in their relationships ? is seen as a major obstacle for the couples’ love. The immortality of love is seen as yet another common aspect of both works. In Poe’s poem, he emphasizes that not even eternal spiritual beings can dismantle the love that he has for Annabel Lee, “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,” (Poe, 30-33). Drawing on his love’s unceasing nature, he uses alliteration and the mention of timeless celestial bodies to denote the extent of his passion, “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,” (Poe, 27-30). This fatalistic and death-defying view of love is witnessed in Shakespeare’s tragedy, as well. When Romeo tells Friar Laurence, “Do thou but close our hands with holy, words, / Then love-devouring death do what he dare; / It is enough I may but call her mine,” (Shakespeare, 2.6.6-9), he is explaining to his accomplice in marrying Juliet that he challenges death itself to try and severe the love they have for one another. And when Romeo has to leave after their wedding night or face the lethal consequences of Juliet’s parents finding him in their house, the fatalistic hero has these departing words, “Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death; / I am content, so thou wilt have it so,” (Shakespeare, 3.5.17-18). He indicates that his love for her is so intense and complete that imminent death could not steal away his joy (Romeo and Juliet Commentary). Throughout both works, the reader is exposed to the theme that love conquers death, and that the couples’ love is so intense that natural processes cannot extinguish it. Finally, one more dynamic of the love portrayed in both “Annabel Lee” and Romeo and Juliet is that heaven is blamed for devising its premature end. The poet attributes his lover’s sudden early death to angels’ envy, “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,” (Poe, 23-26). In this case, Poe uses “chilling” as a figure of speech, (Mandell, 207), to intensify and bring to life the contraction of tuberculosis that he believes angelic beings brought upon Annabel Lee, (Barger, 711). A similar assumption about heaven orchestrating the demise of a couple’s earthly love is seen toward the end of Shakespeare’s play. After Juliet’s father orders her to marry Paris – after she had just wed Romeo – she agonizes to the nurse about her misfortune brought about by heaven’s hands, “Alack, alack, that heaven should practice stratagems / Upon so soft a subject as myself!” (Shakespeare, 3.5.221-222). Yet, even though Romeo and Juliet frequently blame the stars and the heavens for their ill fate, the Elizabethan audience for which this play was written were aware of another reality, knowing that their tragedy “lay not so much in their ill-starred romance as in the way they brought destruction upon themselves by violating the norms of society in which they lived, which… meant strict filial obedience and loyalty to the traditional friendships and enmities of the lineage,” (Stone 87). Despite the fact that the couple was well aware about their breaking of the conventions of society, it is a common theme throughout that they were victims of astronomical or heavenly mischance or ill will. Both Poe and Shakespeare revisit this ominous theme from above, giving their characters comfortable explanations and excuses for their romantic demises. Common twists in love plots permeate the melancholy poem, “Annabel Lee,” and the tragic play, Romeo and Juliet. Readers quickly recognize love in both works as taking on a personality of its own, as it is frequently linked to obsession, envy, unrestraint, misconstrual, immortality, and omens. Even though Poe and Shakespeare engage the reader through entirely different literary forms, they are both extremely effective in portraying numerous tragic interpretations of love in entertaining and compelling ways that have remained timeless over the generations. Works Cited Barger, Andrew. (Ed.). Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems. Memphis: Bottletree Books, 2008. Print. Mandell, Stephen R., LIT. Beverly, MA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2011. Print. Poe, Edgar Allan. Complete Poems. Champaign: University of Illinois press, 2000. Print. Raffel, Burton. Romeo and Juliet, (The Annotated Shakespeare). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Print. “Romeo and Juliet Commentary- Act III.” Absoluteshakespeare.com. Absolute Shakespeare. 2005. Web. 27, Aug. 2011. Shakespeare, William. Romeo & Juliet. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. Print. Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800. New York: Harper, 1977. Print. “The Highborn Kinsman.” Shmoop.com. Shmoop. 2011. Web. 27 Aug. 2011. The NIV Study Bible. Ed. Kenneth Barker. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995. Print. Read More