Edgar Allen Poe has been and always will be my favorite poet and one of my favorite short story writers, two crafts I think are incredibly difficult, of which Poe is an absolute master. I fell in love with Poe in middle school, the first time I read “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Since then my love and respect for him has only grown. I currently own a book of his complete stories and poems and have studied him endlessly. Everything he has ever written has spoken to me in some way, whether to my personal life or just as a writer and literature fanatic. The dark and lonely life of Poe colored his writing in a gloomy, yet extremely passionate way. “Annabel Lee” may be the saddest and most beautiful poem ever written. Whether you’re a hardcore Poe fan like myself, or someone who left him behind in high school, I think these quotes can speak to anyone.
1. “With the fever called ‘Living’ that burned in my brain”–from “For Annie”
2. “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror or their reality.”–from “Narrative of A. Gordon Pym of Nantucket”
3. “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing / Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal dared to dream before” –from “The Raven”
4. “Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” –from “A Dream Within a Dream”
5. “Evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born.”–from “Berenice”
6. “And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?"–from “The Tell-Tale Heart”
7. “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."–from “Eleonora”
8. “Because I feel that, in the heavens above, the angels, whispering to one another, can find, among their burning terms of love, none so devotional as that of ‘Mother’”–from “To my Mother”
And my personal favorite…
9. “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” –From “Annabel Lee”
