excerpt from "Annabel Lee"
by Edgar Allan Poe

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 high-born kinsman 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.

Part A

What is the main idea of this part of the poem?

The sea killed Annabel Lee because it wanted to punish the speaker.

Annabel Lee died because the angels were jealous of her and the speaker.

Annabel Lee's kinsmen took her from the speaker because she was highborn.

Annabel Lee and the speaker loved the sea because it was cold.

Part B

Which lines from the poem best support the answer in Part A?

"So that her high-born kinsman came
And bore her away from me,"

"The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—"

"A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;"

"To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea."

The speaker states in this excerpt that the love he and Annabel had for each other was more than a human feeling ... it was a divine feeling. The divine figures of the angels are shown in the poem as imperfect forms, since besides being unable to love with the same force as human beings, they have a very human characteristic: envy.

The speaker states that the envy of the angels was the reason his beloved became ill, the disease is not mentioned, but he says that "the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee" by this description we can believe that the beloved contracted tuberculosis which was a fatal disease at the time this poem was written.