Love is Frozen... Wider Reading 17: Annabel Lee

Composed in May 1849, Edgar Allen Poe's last complete work was not published until shortly after his death that same year. Poe himself made sure the poem would be seen in print. He gave a copy to Rufus Wilmot Griswold, his personal rival, another to John Thompson to repay a $5 debt, and sold a copy to Sartain's Union Magazine for publication. It is unclear to whom the eponymous Annabel Lee is referring. Biographers and critics often suggest Poe's frequent use of the theme of death, particularly of beautiful women, stems from the repeated loss of women throughout his own life, including his mother Eliza Poe and his foster mother Frances Allan. Biographers often interpret that "Annabel Lee" was written for Poe's wife Virginia, who had died two years prior. "Annabel Lee" and Poe’s other works were an inspiration for Vladimir Nabokov in his novel Lolita (1955), in which the narrator, as a child, falls in love with the terminally ill Annabel Leigh "in a princedom by the sea". Originally, Nabokov titled the novel The Kingdom by the Sea.

The speaker laments the death of his childhood sweetheart, Annabel Lee, reminiscing about their time together and defies even angels and demons to tear his love apart. Poe often associated death with the freezing and capturing of beauty, and “Annabel Lee” is no exception. Just as words can suspend and encapsulate a single moment, so can this poem capture the idyllic childhood romance of the speaker and Annabel. The poem specifically mentions the youth of the unnamed narrator and of Annabel Lee, and it celebrates child-like emotions in a way consistent with the ideals of the Romantic era. Many Romantics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries viewed adulthood as a corruption of the purer instincts of childhood, and they preferred nature to society because they considered it to be a better and more instinctive state.

The name "Annabel Lee" continues the pattern of a number of Poe's names for his dead women, which contain the lulling but melancholy "L" sound. Furthermore, "Annabel Lee" has a peaceful, musical rhythm and makes heavy use of the refrain phrases "in this kingdom by the sea" and "of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” In particular, although the poem's stanzas have a somewhat irregular length and structure, the poet continually emphasizes the three words "me," "Lee," and "sea," enforcing the linked nature of these concepts within the poem.

Annabel Lee - Quotations

Love is Everlasting... Wider Reading 15: Les Misérables

I dreamed a dream of blogs gone by, so went up to my castle on a cloud, sat at an empty chair at an empty table, looked down and saw red and black. So I decided to do a Les Misérables post. Victor Hugo began writing Les Misérables twenty years before its eventual publication in 1862, when he was still in exile. His goals in writing the novel were as lofty as the reputation it has subsequently acquired; it is primarily a great humanitarian work which encourages compassion and hope in the face of adversity and injustice. It is also, however, a historical novel of great scope and analysis, and it provides a detailed vision of nineteenth-century French politics and society. In publishing it, Hugo hoped it would provide inspiration for a more democratic future, for France and for the world.

Les Misérables employs Hugo’s style of imaginative realism and is set in an artificially created human hell which emphasizes the major predicaments of the nineteenth century. Many of the major characters in the novel symbolize one of these predicaments. Jean Valjean represents the degradation of man in the proletariat, and the voicelessness and injustice of the legal system of the time. His hunter, policeman Javert, is the overzealous authority who forget their real duties in the fever of the chase. Fantine represents the subjection of women through hunger, and the predicament of those who are judged unfairly. Finally, Cosette represents the atrophy of the child by darkness, but she also represents hope, the only real hope for life and love in the entire novel.

Hugo makes the contrast between good and evil transparently clear through visual imagery, referring to the men in terms of light and dark. The Bishop of Digne, M. Myriel, who trusts in and hopes for other people, operates in light, whereas the mistrustful Valjean operates under cover of darkness. The tension between light and dark reaches a peak when Valjean stops to look at Myriel before stealing his silver. As Valjean plans his theft, the clouds darken the sky; he then sees Myriel’s face in a beam of moonlight. Finally, we see Valjean standing in the shadows while he breaks into the cabinet of silver. In this description, Hugo uses pathetic fallacy. As Valjean contemplates stealing the silver, the sky is dark, as if it were frowning upon the crime he is about to commit. Once Valjean approaches Myriel, however, everything becomes light, as if Myriel were radiating purity and goodness. By using this technique of pathetic fallacy, Hugo is able to pass judgment on his characters and their actions without ever breaking the narrative voice.

Many types of love are explored within Les Misérables. It is implied that Valjean is in love with Fantine, risking his life to rescue and protect her and her daughter. Both of them have strong parental love for Cosette, who seems to elicit this emotion from many people who meet her. Later in the novel, a young revolutionary named Marius falls in love with her, and the two begin a secret relationship which must be hidden from Valjean. Marius in fact is so besotted with Cosette that he is blind to the feelings of Eponine, who has loved him for many years without his notice

Les Miserables - Quotations

Love is Dangerous... Wider Reading 4: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

"The business of the novelist," author Thomas Hardy once wrote, "is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things, and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things." It is the latter Hardy captures in one of his best and most well-known novels, and equals even the likes of Charles Dickens in his ability to move the reader on behalf of those who society and history have discounted. Tess, a milkmaid, is scarred by her encounter with her calculating, usurping "cousin," and is a heroine without wealth or position. Despite this, her story has a heart-breaking pity within it that reveals the universal condition of people and society in the late 19th century.

The action of the novel is largely confined to the rural back lanes and fields of Wessex - the fictional corner of south-west England made so brilliantly real by Hardy - a technique employed by the author to demonstrate how actions have far-reaching consequences, even if they only affect a small number of people. However, the skill of the writer means that the reader is left with such an exact impression of rural life in the late 19th century, that the whole of society can be found in the one place.

Love is the dominant theme in "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," and is the driving force behind most of the tragic events within. The desire that Alec D'Urberville feels for Tess is the main reason for his attack, and her hatred of him because of this is partly what drove her to murder. Contrastingly, the love that Angel Clare and Tess feel for each other is the conventional, romantic kind, which makes it all the more tragic when they are separated because of his prejudices.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Quotations

Love is Unattainable... Wider Reading 1: Frankenstein

Begun when the author was only eighteen and conceived from a nightmare, Frankenstein is the deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818. The novel has thus seared its way into the public imagination, while firmly establishing itself as one of the pioneering works of modern science fiction.

When thinking of love, Frankenstein is not a novel which immediately springs to mind. However, love, or rather the absence and fight for it, is in fact a prevalent theme within the novel, and was strongly influenced by the author's own passionate relationship with her husband, Percy Shelley. The monster longs for love, as Mary did. In the frozen Alpine wastelands, he demands that Victor create him a bride. Frankenstein, at first, refuses to make his creation a mate, fearful that they might breed, or unite and attack. However, with the fate of his remaining friends and family hanging in the balance at the monster's whim, he concedes, but eventually destroys the female.

Here we see an example of Frankenstein's monster being robbed of a chance of love, an event which happens continually throughout the novel. Due to his ugly appearance, he cannot have a relationship with another human, and thus cannot have children. He also has no friends, as most hate and fear him on sight. Additionally, when the monster’s expectation of acceptance and love from a family he has been watching is upset by their violent reaction to him, he represses his instinct to injure his attackers. This is because in that moment, despite being physically assaulted, the monster still feels love towards them. Victor Frankenstein, on the other hand, has every chance of love, with a large, close family and his affectionate fiancée, Elizabeth. The creature would also have loved him as a father, had he given him a chance. He throws each of these opportunities away, through his own foolishness, neglect, and mistreatment of his creation.

Frankenstein - Quotations