Edgar Allen Poe's Poem "For Annie"
Concerning interpretation of the poem by Vicente Reyes
An exchange between two poetic minds about a common academic question.
Subj: Share your gift with me...honor me
Date: 11/24/98 10:02:04 PM Central Standard Time
From: Brit******
To: Vincent
Vincent,
Well, here it is! I love this poem. I just need a few ideas on how to approach the erotic aspects of it without getting too "trashy." I am afraid that when it comes to eroticism my vocabulary is a bit limited. I do realize that Poe isn't literally dying as it seems in the beginning of the poem. Poor Edgar has been tortured by such desire for Annie (a married woman, I might add) that for him it's been pure hell. The "crisis" for Poe was his overwhelming need to be with her. I was actually glad to know that Poe was able to satiate his incredible hunger for Annie. Most of Poe's other writings imply that his life was pretty melancholy. Poe met Annie the year before his death and this poem was written only a few months before he died. She was 28, he was in his late 40's. The poem is a wonderful tribute to her and to the passion that they shared. Hope you like it. Once again, I do apologize for being so bold as to impose upon your time with this. I feel that it is such a great poem and would hate it if I didn't do it justice by interpreting it in a grand way.
November 30, 1998
Kathi *******
Kathi, I have come away from the poem without much erotic impression. Don't know if it can be of any service to you to read my views on Poe’s piece, but here they are. VR
Why We Look So Hard: For Annie
Edgar Allen Poe's stance in his macabre love poem For Annie is so mad as to have the touch of genius in its eccentricity. In this poetic pose Poe has no equal, antecedent, or descendant in the annals of world literature, for he takes the grossest imagery and endues it with the quality of the Romantic. The reader is taunted with the simplistic sing-song rhyme of the first verse and jabbed with the concept that life is a fever. Obviously the parallel is that a warm body is alive and one that is cool is not alive, so if life is like a fever symptomized by hot blood then Poe's protagonist is speaking from the dead. However, as all three fates would have it, there is a twist to Poe's syllabic string, and that makes for a transcendent level of imagery.
It is a not obscurely written clue in Poe's verse that we find as we continue. His reference to a "naphthalene" river is absolutely fantastic in that there are no rivers of such substance, which is an expensively refined chemical solvent such as we find in many products that are considered toxic if inhaled. Poe has said elsewhere that his device was to focus on words leading up to even ONE word for maximum effect. As a writer he was and remains a writer's writer. His invention of the detective story was a direct result of his fascination with details and what details say and do to the observer. In this case his poem has the ephemeral quality of an ether-soaked handkerchief, which is wet one instant and dry in seconds. He commences by saying "sadly" he laments the loss of physical strength, as when the ether is but beginning to take its potentially deadly effect. The mad rush of living seems as far away to him as when the addict looks back on his frustration after his dose, after his fix, which is a totally different world by virtue of the drug than when he can only feel his need for the same. Instantly Poe hypnotizes (or to coin a phrase, hypno-anesthetizes) the unaware reader by suggesting that he is resting "composedly", a suddenly more neutral state than the sadness of a moment ago. It takes longer to write it than to read it, but the time flow is close enough to synchronize.
Poe seems to relish in his deadpan recital that he could pass as if dead to anyone seeing him in his trance. The cue for the reader to follow Poe's stream of consciousness up his ethereal stairway to heaven is found in his invitation to think at more than one level. When he says "no muscle I move as I lie at length" he makes reference to his physical space by the word "length" but in the following line he says "But no matter!-I feel / I am better at length". Here Poe is almost but for the punctuation saying that he feels no matter, but even if it is not a metaphysical statement he clearly says he is better at "length", a reference to time. Better at length, but in looking back in the short term he refers to the horrors of his being without his fix, to the "moaning and groaning, the sighing the sobbing ... the sickness, the nausea, the pitiless pain ... ", all of which sound like the torture of the addict’s withdrawal symptoms. It is said that the intoxicating love of or for some women can be compared to a drug and its addiction, but I suspect Poe may be doing the reverse in his piece overall. At any rate, he declares that for the moment he has "drunk of a water that quenches all thirst", a water that flows with a lullaby sound. It is in the preceding lines that he says the thirst has been for the "naphthaline river" [nowadays we spell it "naphthalene"] of Passion accurst. It is not the passion of the wolf but that of the monk that he seems to invoke though, since he goes on to speak of how his "tantalized spirit" remembers former material attachments, that passion which is an attachment to material things (things made of matter). Those are the "old agitations" that his spirt refuses to regret, and there is no repentance found in Poe's protagonist.
But he can forget the former passion as he now perceives what he calls a holier odor. He has gone from past roses to present rosemary and pansy, quite a sniffing journey. He cites his spirit as lying "blandly", blandly now--- no longer in ecstasy--- but upon perception of the holier odor it "lies happily [bold type mine ] in many a dream of the truth and the beauty of Annie". About thirty years ago there was an entire generation speaking of truth found in the mists of the mind when under the influence of LSD or other psychoactive substances. Drugs may or may not have contributed to Poe's demise, certainly they have contributed to the demise of many. One modern day singer, Neil Young, has even sung about heroin, saying that he has seen "the needle and the damage done ... but every junkie is like a setting sun". It is the nature of the human mind to be egocentric, so when a drugged brain perceives itself in the center of the universe it can find wonderful truth in believing the universe revolves around it.
Let us note that Poe has only just now in the poem’s chronological development mentioned Annie as either a woman or as a pseudonym for his intoxicated bliss. Instantly, like Alice through the looking glass, it is another image that comes to mind. The reader's consciousness is already firmly planted in the body of a man who is lying like one dead (but no matter, he can still feel even if he cannot move). Now he says he is bathing in dreams of truth and beauty, but he is drowning in a bath of the tresses of Annie. This image makes sense if Annie is a lover with long hair, whose embrace of this apparently dead man is effected by her leaning over him. It can seem to a man that his woman's long hair is like a gentle rain on him. Yet this image is not accurate nor literal, for it is a device used by Poe to speak of momentary contact with the beloved. He says he FALLS asleep ON her breast (and deeply to sleep) FROM the heaven of her breast. It is a very quick touch. And it is over. Like when someone leans over a coffin to gaze upon the departing one.
From this point on the poet is just cleaning up. His poem has reached its climax, now he says he lies "composedly ... in [his] bed (knowing her love)". He rests contentedly now, he says, with her love at his breast. Is it a white death flower? I can only imagine a very dry handkerchief fallen from the hand of a sleeping man in some narrow cot somewhere. His dismal surroundings are worlds away from where his mind lies. He could be in a cheap hotel room but his thoughts are in heavenly chambers. The final verse of the poem seems stilted and patched on, as if added the morning after. The same heart that was earlier the source of "horrible throbbing" is now rather described as "brighter than all of the many stars in the sky". It glows, says Poe, it sparkles with Annie. It glows with the light of the love of his Annie, with the thought of the light of the eyes of Annie. The necromantic imagery of the dead and the living in love is but a pallid backdrop for Poe's brush of horror. In a departing flash of wit Poe thus says that the glow was here--- but it is now gone! Now we are only left with the THOUGHT of that light in the eyes of his Annie. It is a delicious contrast, for the light in Annie’s eyes is perceived as bright as a golden pinpoint of a star on the black velvet heavens. It is not the sleepy mind of Poe thus represented, but the opposite, the alert Poe. That light is to Poe’s current state of consciousness like mountain peaks are to the depths of a valley. By reverse deduction, using Poe’s famed technique, we can only conclude that his highs must be as extreme as his lows. It is known that the effects of certain substances have a defined effect on the pupils. I think of Poe's Annie and I feel chills and a subtle desire to vomit. It is the endearing quality of the mad genius, especially one whose desperation and dissolution are immortalized by the inglorious halo of death, that the inspirational source of his works will be forever locked from the world. Poe took the secret of his genius with him into the vault of death and the key is nowhere to be found. Maybe that is why we look so hard.
November 30, 1998
A note for Kathi: in order to try and examine Poe's flow of ideas I rearranged the line scheme of the poem as follows, a device which made me see that certain lines were out of the poem's pattern (as perceived by me), and these I underlined below even though I did not develop a commentary based on their psychological significance, about which much might be conjectured.
FOR ANNIE by Edgar Allan Poe (a new century dissection of the line scheme)
Thank Heaven! the crisis- The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last-
And the fever called "Living" Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know I am shorn of my strength, And no muscle I move As I lie at full length-
But no matter!-I feel I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly, Now, in my bed That any beholder Might fancy me dead-
Might start at beholding me, Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning The sighing and sobbing, Are quieted With that horrible throbbing
At heart:- ah, that horrible, Horrible throbbing!
The sickness- the nausea- The pitiless pain- Have ceased, with the fever That maddened my brain-
With the fever called " That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all That torture the worst Has abated- the terrible Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river Of Passion accurst:-
I have drunk of a water That quenches all thirst:-
Of a water that flows, With a lullaby sound, From a spring but a very few Feet under ground-
From a cavern not very far Down under ground.
And ah! let it never Be foolishly said That my room it is gloomy And narrow my bed;
For man never slept In a different bed-
And, to sleep, you must slumber In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit Here blandly reposes, Forgetting, or never Regretting its roses-
Its old agitations Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly Lying, it fancies A holier odor about it, of pansies-
A rosemary odor, Commingled with pansies-
With rue and the beautiful Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily, Bathing in many A dream of the truth And the beauty of Annie-
Drowned in a bath Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me She fondly caressed, And then I fell
To sleep on her breast- Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm, And she prayed to the angels To keep me from harm-
To the queen of the angels To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly, Now, in my bed, (Knowing her love) That you fancy me dead-
And I rest so contentedly, Now, in my bed, (With her love at my breast) That you fancy me dead-
That you shudder to look at me, Thinking me dead.
But my heart it is brighter Than all of the many Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie- It glows with the light Of the love of my Annie-
With the thought of the light Of the eyes of my Annie.
Edgar Allen Poe (line scheme modified by Vicente Reyes for interpretation only)
The overall aura of the poem is like what a teenage poet grappling with rhymes would write about a girl but the ideas are like slippery fish that Poe has let loose in the reader's mind. Poe seems to have often written for the stage reading, in which case the repeated words, colored by ranging tones, have an effect beyond mere exclamation.
Internet source: http://www.thepoetsdiary.com/
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