Abstract

The present study delves into the stylistic analysis of the poem, Annabel Lee" penned by Edgar Allan Poe. The study is based on the qualitative method, where the textual verses of the poem were examined to identify the peculiar qualities of the poet's style by analyzing his choice of vocabulary related to different lexical categories. The researcher used Leech and Short's (1981) model to do a stylistic analysis of the given poem at the lexical level.  The lexical analysis shows the emotional narration of the tragic death of the poet's beloved. This lexical analysis further showed the choice and use of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs by the poet which supports his emotive attitude. The study provides the researchers with a new insight into analyzing the writer's style by doing a stylistic analysis of any literary work.

Key Words

Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee, Lexical Categories, Stylistics Analysis

Introduction

Stylistics studies the styles and examines the use of language in various literary texts. (Widowson, 2014). Stylistics focuses on the aesthetics of language, both written and spoken. Stylistics is sometimes also called "linguistic criticism" or "literary linguistics," as it applies linguistic methods and norms to literary works (R. Fowler, 1996). Writers, authors, and poets utilize unique and inventive styles in literary works. The Latin word "stylus" is the origin of the word "style" which means how the writer writes or produces something. According to Leech (2014), style is how any literary piece is expressed through writing or speech. Writers exclusively use poetic and figurative language in their writing style. The writers communicate their feelings and thoughts using a range of selections of words, sentence structures, and innovative poetic methods.

The writer's style reflects his or her conduct, attitude, and personality. A writer's style expresses their personality, ideas, and feelings to their audience. An author's writing style might reveal their name, as certain writers may break from standard conventions. Individuals who violate graphological, phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and semantic systems of language systems, create a distinct style.

Linguists have attempted to arrive at a working definition of stylistics. Bullock and Trombley (2000) observe stylistics as "A field of linguistics that analyzes the features of contextually differentiated use of language, particularly literary language.

According to Short and Leech (1981), authors utilize style to convey meaning within a certain context. Lawal (2004) suggests that style refers to linguistic expressions that encompass all aspects of any language. According to Haynes (1989)s style is an exploration of personality. Linguistics is the study of how writers' perspectives are portrayed in literature.

Stylistic analysis examines many forms of linguistic expression. (Verdonk; 2002). Widdowson (2014) describes stylistics as a crucial examination of literary texts... Stylistics suggests how readers engage with words, specifically in a literary discourse. It is a science that investigates all major features of a particular language. Stylistics is to understand literary writings based on their function, rather than only their formal aspects.  Focusing on the stylistic features of the poem, the present study by using Leech and Short's (1981) model for stylistics analysis, focuses on the different lexical categories used in the poem. 

Problem Statement

Stylistics is an important area to analyze any given literary discourse at different levels such as lexical categories, grammatical categories, figure of speech, and cohesion. Many researchers have stylistically analyzed literary works in detail at grammatical and figurative levels but none of them chose to analyze any literary work to analyze the lexical categories in detail thus this study fills the gap by doing the statistical analysis of the poem "Annabel Lee" at lexical level.

Significance of the Study

The present study is significant as it provides a new dimension for analyzing the style of any writer by examining the word choices made by the writer. A deep analysis of all open-class lexical categories like nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs and their sub-categories provides the researchers with new perspectives for research purposes. 

Research question

1.        Which lexical choices have been made by Edgar Allan Poe in the poem, "Annabel Lee" and how do words help him to depict his emotional state to the reader?

Introduction to, Annabel Lee

Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe is his penultimate full-length poem. Like a lot of Poe's works, it deals with the tragic death of a beautiful young woman. The speaker, who was in love with his beloved Annabel Lee when they were both young, admires her so much that even demons are resentful. He still loves her, even after she died. There has been significant debate over who, if anyone, influenced "Annabel Lee". Several women have been named, but Poe's spouse, Virginia, seems the most convincing candidate. This poem was written in 1949, after the death of Poe's wife, and was published just after the death of the poet.

Summary of the Poem

The speaker in the poem describes his affection for Annabel Lee, which started in a "kingdom by the sea" a long time ago. Despite being young, their devotion to one another was so powerful that even demons envied them. As a result, the storyteller assumes the seraphs killed her. Nonetheless, their bond of affection is so strong that it extends beyond death, and the narrator believes their two souls are still attached. Every night, the speaker dreamt about Annabel Lee, and the stars mimicked the dazzling beauty of her eyes. Every night, the storyteller lies with her in her beach tomb.

Literature Review

As the style of any written or spoken discourse provides meaning to that discourse, stylistic analyses of different literary works have been used to dive into these works from peculiar dimensions. Leech (1969) defined style as the choice of linguistic medium as “a sort of revolt against the norm; a repetition of linguistic forms…." The term "revolutionary" refers to breaking with traditional analytical standards. Furthermore, style provides insight into the author's personality. According to Leech(1969), smoothness and clarity in diction may be achieved by modifying the structure of words. According to Short (1996), stylistic analysis encompasses more than just language. It analyzes the meaning, hidden ideas, and themes of a work. Latif et al.(2022) analyzed two selected poems of  Robert Frost at the phonological level, and semantic levels to examine the aesthetic as well as pragmatic values of the poems.  Almahameed(2020), stylistically examined, "The Little Match Girl" composed by Hans Christian Anderson. His study thoroughly examined the poem at every possible level endorsed in the short story. The analysis of the short story at the phonological level, syntactic level, graphological level, and semantic levels helped the researcher to analyze the figurative language of the poem by noticing the variation and uniqueness of language beyond the aesthetic level. Imran et al.(2021), stylistically analyzed the poem, "A Dream within a Dream" penned by Edgar Allan Poe. `He extracted the meaning of the poem by thoroughly analyzing it at the semantic level, graphological level, and pragmatical level. This study made him get a deep understanding of the poem through the images and other stylistic devices employed in the text. Parallel to this,  Suparlan’s et al.(2019) stylistic analysis of Poe's poem, "The Bell", mainly focuses on the Stylistic features of the poem to get the message that Edger Ellan Poe tried to deliver through “The Bell”. On the other hand,  Putri(2018), in the Stylistic analysis of Thomas Hardy's poem, "During Wind and Rain", focused on the lexico-syntactical levels to get the meanings and understanding of the poem.

The writers, speakers, and poets employ different devices to make the style of their written or spoken discourses unique. In this way, the embedded message undergoes the veil of different employed devices in their style. While stylistic analysis assists in unveiling the real motive and the message of the writer or speaker. Mahmood et al.(2021), attempted an inclusive study to get the hidden meaning of a highly symbolic poem, "Mending Walls" by Robert Frost. He suggested how the stylistic analysis can assist the literary reader in getting the embedded meaning by examining the many stylistic features that carry the meanings in them. Anjum et al.(2021), stylistically analyzed a poem, "A Village Morning" written by Daud Kamal. His study led him to engage himself in the exploration of the hidden meaning and concrete embedded throughout the poem as well as the style of the poet. By using the stylistic lens, the researcher was able to identify the peculiarity in the style, selection of the words, and formation of deep expression by the poet which made him able to portray his sweet and pleasant youth in the poem. 

Research Methodology

The present study attempts to analyze the poem, "Annabel Lee", concerning stylistics which according to (Toolan et al., 1983) investigates the artistic accomplishment of the writer and how language helps to gain this artistic accomplishment. The research follows the pattern of qualitative study which adopts in which data is collected so that information may be measured and given to statistical treatment to support or disprove "alternate knowledge claims." (Wilson & Creswell, 1996).

Theoretical Framework

Leech and Short (1981) proposed that the style of a literary work can be analyzed at four different levels which include, lexical, grammatical, phonological, and graphological. They proposed this comprehensive frame to analyze work from every perspective to get a thorough understanding. The list of probable style indicators can help readers conduct a linguistic assessment of the text and identify key aspects (p.59) This checklist allows for a more comprehensive stylistic study of a text, as certain investigations focus on only one or a few key traits (ibid., p.55). The checklist is given in the table 1.

Table 1

Lexical Category	Grammatical category	Figures of speech	Cohesion
Noun	Sentence type	Grammatical scheme	Context
Adjective	Sentence complexity	Lexical scheme	Cohesive devices
Verb	Clause structure and types	Tropes	--
Adverb	Word Classes	Phonological scheme	--
--	Phrases	--	--

The researcher in the present study is focused on the lexical features, which include open class categories of words such as general features, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The term "lexicology" means "words" or "vocabulary." (Bussmann, 1996),  defines lexicology as the explanation of "the arrangement of the words of any language" and studies the underlying semantic structure and links between linguistic expressions. Crystal (2008, p. 278) defines it as "the complete study of a vocabulary of any language." 

Lexical Features of Vocabulary

General

Is vocabulary easy or complicated? Does the writer employ word connections beyond their literal meaning?

Easy vocabulary and complicated vocabulary are distinguished based on their morphological structure. Easy vocabulary contains free morphemes with no affixation while complex vocabulary contains free morphemes with affixes.

Colloquial or Formal

The colloquiality and formality of words according to, Jackson and Amvela(2000) are determined through their etymology. The words from the Old English period belong to colloquial language (p.35)

Descriptive or Evaluative

There could be both descriptive and evaluative meanings of any word based on its context. Kortmann and Loebner (2013) define a descriptive meaning of a term as one that "bears on reference or truth" (p. 22). According to Wales (2014) evaluative meaning  "akins to emotional meaning: some words hit our feelings because they have implications of acceptance or rejection" (p. 139). 

General or Specific

The words can be classified into general or specific based on their "morphological analysis",( Jackson and Amvela. 20000. p.4). According to them simple words are "morphologically unanalyzable"  as they are "free morpheme", while the other hand complex words are formed by any morphological modification or addition of affixes(ibid). According to  Mandell and Kirszner (2012), general vocabulary relates to the entire class and group and specific words refer to specific individuals, or products (p. 194). For example, "school" and "girl" are broad terms, while "John" and "George" refer to specific individuals. According to Wales (2014), pronouns can refer to persons in general. 

Is there any Usage of Unusual or Special Vocabulary

The special vocabulary is referred to as "jargon." Mandell and Kirszner (2012), state that jargon refers to the specific lexicon of a business, profession, or academic specialty.

To which Semantic Areas do Words Belong

(Bussmann, 1996) defines the semantic field as "a group of semantically related words whose meanings define one another." Wales (2014, p. 150) refers to it as "the conceptual field," which is represented in the lexical field. Leech and Short (1981), do not form a separate category for semantic features of language. They rather added it into the lexical category. 

Nouns

Are nouns concrete or abstract?  What types of abstract nouns exist, such as those about incidents, thoughts, procedures, and moral and social qualities? According to Mandell and Kirszner(2012), concrete nouns refer to the names of things that can be perceived by our senses as touching, hearing, tasting, or smelling (p.467). Abstract nouns are those ideas, qualities, emotions, or conditions that can only be felt but can not be perceived by our senses (ibid). 

What purpose do proper names serve?

The choice of proper nouns by the author sometimes serves a specific purpose for the reader's understanding and thorough perception. They might be symbolic carrying given emotional or additional meanings by the author.  They can also be helpful in the characterization as they can be onomatopoeic words or portmanteau words. Sihler, 2000) defines portmanteau words as new words formed by merging two words of similar or associated meanings. 

Adjectives

Adjectives belong to the auditory, referential, emotive, or evaluative category. Furthermore, the following additional factors frequency of adjectives, frequency of adjectives, physical adjectives, psychological adjectives, visual adjectives, auditory adjectives, color adjectives, emotive adjectives, and gradability of adjectives also provide help in getting a better understanding.

Frequency of adjectives: The frequency of adjectives depends on the occurrence and usage of adjectives in the text. If they are large in number, they are frequent.

Evaluative adjectives: Givón (2001), relates these adjectives to "subjective judgments" based on either a "physical or social" basis dependent on inherent traits or temporary states. For example good/evil (short time states),  or charming/ugly (genetic traits).

Auditory Adjectives: Auditory adjectives cover properties like loud or soft, noisy or quiet, high or low, sharp or flat, mellow or harsh, and melody or cacophony respectively related to loudness, pitch, harmony, and melody (Givon, 2001).

Referential adjectives: Lieber and Stelauer (2014) state referential adjectives as relational adjectives, which "classify entities or specify entities."

Emotive adjectives: As mentioned by name these adjectives represent negative, negative, or neutral emotions.

Color adjectives: Colour adjectives are used to denote dark/light, black/white or violet, blue and green which stands for brightness and color respectively.

Visual adjectives: They represent any visual entity including colour or physical feature of something.

Psychological adjective: They represent "emotions: funny, brave, sad or amazing."(Leech et al. 1982). These emotions belong to the emotional and psychological state of people.

Verbs

Do they contribute significantly to the meaning?· Are they static (states) or dynamic (actions/events)? Do they refer to motions, bodily actions, spoken acts, mental states, perceptions, etc.? Do they include facts or not?

Factivity of verbs: Factive verbs work on the principle of presupposition which has "a logical relationship between statements."( Crystal, 2008, p. 384). These are the verbs like know, regret, realize, etc which take a complement clause and the speaker's presupposed truth is expressed in that clause.

Transitive and intransitive verbs: The basic distinction between transitive verbs and intransitive verbs is based on the choice of object. A transitive verb "takes a direct or indirect object", while an intransitive verb does not "take any direct or indirect object." ( Hurford, 1994, p.242).

Stative or dynamic verbs: The stativity and dynamicity of verbs are based semantic role that is performed by those verbs. Verbs can perform "psychical, social, perceptual or mental functions." (Leech et al. 1882, p. 46). Static verbs are used to depict conditions or states while dynamic verbs are used to show actions or events. 

Adverb

Leech and Short’s (1981) checklist for adverbs.

Are adverbs used frequently? What semantic roles do they fulfill)? Is there a considerable usage of sentence adverbs (conjuncts such as so, therefore, nevertheless, and disjuncts like surely, evidently, and frankly)? 

Semantic roles of adverbs

Based on semantic roles performed by adverbs, they are divided into, adverb of manner, adverb of place, adverb of degree, adverb of direction, adverb of duration, adverb of time, and adverb of frequency. According to Leech and Short (1982, p. 48), adverbs are divided into different types based on the questions they answer as given in Table 2. 

Table 2

Type of Adverb	Questions to be Answered	Examples
Degree	To what degree?	Scarcely, much, rather
Frequency	How often?	Daily, sometimes, often
Manner	How	Beautifully, neatly
Direction	Where to/from?	Down, school, backward
Time	When?	Today, midnight, soon
Place	Where?	Here, there, nowhere
Duration	How long?	Short, always, briefly

Findings

Open class words

First of all, we consider open-class words, carrying the majority meaning in the language opposite to the closed-class words such as determiners (e.g. these, those) and prepositions, etc. Here class words are divided either they are nouns, verbs, adverbs, or adjectives as given in Table 

Table 3

Nouns	Adjectives	Adverbs	Verbs
Year, kingdom, sea, maiden, name, thought, love,  child, wingèd seraphs, Heaven, reason, wind, cloud, Annabel Lee, kinsmen, sepulcher, angels, men, night, demons, soul, moon, dreams, stars, eyes, tide, darling, life, bride, tomb, (32)	Many, winged, more, beautiful, highborn, happy, envying, stronger, older, wiser, bright, sounding. my (12)	There, so, long, away, ago, by far, ever, all (8)	Lived, know, loved, be, coveted, blew, chilling, killing, came, bore, shut, envying, rise, feel, dissever, beam, feel, lie down (18)

Lexical categories

The lexical categories have been summarized in Table 2.

Table 4

General	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
Easy or complicated; The whole poem consists of easy vocabulary. There is not any complex corpus of vocabulary.	Abstract or concrete: There are both abstract nouns as love, year, heaven, soul, reason, dreams, and life,  and concrete nouns, such as kingdom, sea, child, winged seraphs, cloud, sepulchre, angels, men, moon, stars, eyes, tide, darling, bride and tomb,  in the poem.	Frequency of adjective: Adjectives in the poem are frequent are they reoccur many times.	Factive verbs: The use of the verbs "Know" and "feel", shows the poet's presupposed truth, understanding, and knowledge about the described incident.	Adverb of Degree: The use of adverbs like "all",  and "far", shows to what degree the intensity and the involvement of the other factors were in the contemplation of the speaker and his lover.
Any connection beyond the literal meaning: Most of the words from nouns, like angels, moon, stars, and wind convey additional meanings according to the progression of emotion of the poet.	Purpose of proper nouns: The poet used only one proper noun six times in the poem. This repetition helps the reader to get a deep insight into the poet's attachment to one woman. This tends to show the nature of their strong love relationship.	Evaluative adjectives: There are adjectives like, highborn, wiser, and beautiful, which are to be called as,  evaluative adjectives as they show the poet's subjective approach and inherent traits of the characters.	Transitive or intransitive verbs: Transitive verbs used in the poem are, "know", "love", "shut", "bore", "dissever", "covet", "Kill" and, "chill", while intransitive verbs are, "rise", "came",  "blew", "live", "feel", and, "lie".	Adverb of frequency: "Ever" is used to show how often the incident happened.
Descriptive or evaluative: The vocabulary used in the poem is evaluative rather descriptive as the words used in the poem convey the speaker's emotional attitude towards the tragic death of his beloved.	Collective noun: There is no collective noun used in the poem.	Auditory Adjectives: "Sounding" has been used as an auditory adjective that conveys a loud and harsh auditory effect.	Stative or Dynamic Verbs: There are more dynamic verbs, like “lie”, “came”, “dissever”, “shut”, “live”, blew”, “rise”, “chilling”, and  “killing”, which describe the physical process going on in the poem. Static verbs used in the poem are, “know”, “feel” and “love”, which do not describe any physical action or process.	Adverb of manner: There is no adverb used to describe the way and the manner of their separation.
General or specific: There are more words like "maiden", "sea", "kingdom", "angels", "seraphs", "bride", "love" and "darling" which are general. And most of them generalize the opposing forces of the world against the poet's love. There is only one repetitive specific word, "Annabel Lee", which specifies the poet's relationship with his beloved.		Referential adjectives: The poet used "my" and, "winged" as relational or referential adjectives, respectively referent to the poet's love and envying characters of the poem/		Adverb of direction: "Away", as an adverb of direction shows the separation,  distancing, and taking away of something. As Annabel Lee was taken away from the speaker.
Unusual or specialized vocabulary: There is not any unusual or specialized jog on of vocabulary		Emotive adjectives: Although the poem progresses in the emotional mode there is only one adjective, "happy", which shows positive emotions and serves the purpose of an emotive adjective.		Adverb of time: "Ago", with the adverb of duration, "long", again hints at the remote spatial setting of the incident.
Semantic area of the words: The poet used synonymy, “coveted, envy”, “angles, winged seraphs, “tomb, sepulcher" and, "bore away, dissever".  There are also  homographs, "love(noun)" and "love (verb)"		Color Adjectives “Bright”, is the only color adjective used in the poem.		Adverb of place: “There” is an adverb of place which shows the remoteness of the place where the incident happened.
		Visual adjectives:   "Beautiful" and "older" conveying the sense of physical appearance, are used as a visual adjective.		Adverb of duration: “Long” and, “so” are the verbs with show the duration of the occurred incident.
		Psychological adjectives: Psychological adjectives like "Wiser" and "envying" depict the psychological condition of any person.

 

Discussion

As the findings show the vocabulary used in the poem is formal and descriptive. The words used here are specific. The words used here have some emotive purpose rather than referential purposes. There is not used any specific morphological categories. These words refer to the subject of death and the speaker's emotional attachment to his beloved as well as the concept of envy.  In the lexical categories, the concrete nouns are dominating the abstract noun. These concrete nouns create an emotional atmosphere and refer to the event of the death of the speaker's beloved. Some concrete nouns like "sea" and "kingdom" give the spatial setting, while "darling" "life" and "bride" show the emotional state of the speaker. The word "maiden" shows not only the age of the girl but also what kind of she is. Another concrete noun is "sea" which shows the vastness being cold and barren which symbolically shows the feelings of the speaker about his beloved's death. While on the other hand abstract nouns refer to some process. One proper noun, Annabel Lee is used repeatedly and adds some emotional effect to the poem.

The poem also includes adjectives and adverbs that contribute to the eerie and melancholic atmosphere, such as "chilling," "sounding," and "all the night tide.

 The loss of Annabel Lee was the loss of everything for the poet. He used such kind adjectives to describe the situation.“Chilling"  is formally used to describe the horrifying,  exhausting, and very tiresome condition and "killing"  for something causing death. The combination of both refers to the terrifying death of the poet's beloved.

 The adjective “many” has been repeated in two types followed by a noun, "years". It depicts the temporal setting of the poem. It indicates the time of their relationship.  Most of the adverbs used in the poem are related to adverbs of degree and time, in the past. The time which has passed and is far from reach.  The adverb "ever" underscores the enduring nature of their love. Verbs like "loved," "coveted," "bore," and "shut" create a sense of loss and separation between the speaker and Annabel Lee. Furthermore, most of the verbs used in the poem are dynamic rather than stative verbs. Which emphasizes the physical occurrence of the whole process.

Anjum et al. (2020) stylistically analyzed "A Morning Village" by Daud Kamal. The findings of their study correlated with our study. The findings of their study revealed the hidden meanings of the poem which showed the poet's mental observations.

Ramzan et al(2021) found similar findings in their stylistic analysis of "Call is a Sunshine" by Hamid Khan that writers use language in their peculiar style to attract the attention of the reader toward their desired personal, social, ethical, or regional issue or problem and thus everything is passed through their style. Contrary to lexical analysis, Hasanah et al (2021), analyzed "Annabel Lee" at a figurative level, which emphasized the aesthetic purpose rather than the message of the poem. The stylistic study of "The Match Girl" by Almahameed (2020), was done at the phonological, syntactic, graphological, and semantic levels rather than at the lexical level. This study also helped the researcher to explore the uniqueness and variation of the writer's style. 

Conclusion

The present stylistic study of the poem shows the emotive purpose of the fulfilled by choosing certain vocabulary. The study provides a way for the researchers to search for meaning in the text by observing the style of any literary work at the lexical level which includes open-class words such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. 

References