"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe (poetry reading)

In modern literature, this poem is strongly associated with Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, originally entitled "The Kingdom by the Sea". Humbert Humbert's first love was called Annabel Leigh. This is my reading of the start of Lolita which contains many references to this poem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrAEVk73mo&feature=response_watch

It was Poe's last poem written in 1849, the year of his death. There are versions with slightly different wording.

The prototype for Annabel Lee was likely to be his first love, Sarah Elmira Royster (First picture) She was 15 and he was 16 and her father put an end to it. Twenty years later they resumed their relationship but Poe died within a year. When Poe was 26 he married his 13 year old cousin Virginia Clemm, (the marriage certificate said she was 21) who died at the age of 25. (Last picture).

It's not surprising that there's a parallel in Nabokov's youth. He had an association with a girl from the local village that he met in secret when he was 15 and she about the same age. He lived in a grand mansion, so the affair was doomed from the start. Nabokov's family were forced to abandon their lifestyle and the locality which separated them.

Which seems to indicate a truth that is currently unpopular in society. We are not born with preformed sexual desires: both men and women are imprinted by their first experiences of sex which set a pattern for life. This seems to happen for most people between the ages of 12 and 16. Whatever excited you first will always excite you. Once you are imprinted, it seems that you have no choice.

This is particularly true if there was no progression: if early arousal was followed by a long period of isolation and deprivation from the object of one's desires, where the only sexual outlet is in internal romantic reverie.

For more fortunate individuals, sexual experience is progressive. There is a maturation in which early experiences are overlaid by later events, gradually modifying desire and turning it towards attainable objects. Or, perhaps luckier still, if the object of your desires remains with you as your partner and matures along with you.

Nabokov knew that the internal ephemera were unobtainable, regret was perpetual and the experience could not be realised again in the real world. Which is what Lolita was about. Perhaps this explains why he was so obsessed with butterflies, being external ephemera which were obtainable.

For a female voice reading it, here is the wonderful Marianne Faithfull:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5d-CMqhTKE&feature=related
If you prefer an American voice, this reading seems to be popular:
http://content.loudlit.org/audio/annabel/pages/01_01_annabel.htm

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Annabel
• Lee
• Edgar
• Allan
• Poe
• Lolita
• Nabokov

[sijour]

your ending bit was perfect. thank you.

[radimsirl]

Magnificent!

[ImGoingToBeAnMD]

That was excellent! I personally think so because I adore The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes. Call me morbid, but I always enjoy literature based on love and loss. Also, you can read Edgar Allen Poe's poems better than himself!

[LoveHurts1712]

I love this poem its so close to my heart.. and the reading just perfect .

[upim]

one of my favorite poems. your version is perfect! thank you!!

[jeremyshambles]

great reading, the way nabokov wrote lolita is so amazingly perfect i always think back to when i first began reading it and thinking that it seems almost inhuman to be that good at expressing thought through the written word. thanks for sharing these poems, cheers from san diego