If you've ever been at the top of your high school English class or you once got the word "sepulcher" wrong on an A.P. vocab quiz, you may be familiar with Edgar Allan Poe's classic poem "Annabel Lee." You might also have been surprised to hear Peter Kavinsky's not-so-original poem in To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You. While the mismanagement of syllables may have set off alarm bells for some, even the studious Lara Jean was fooled by Peter's charming bit of plagiarism. For those of you who aren't super familiar with the western literary canon, it turns out "Annabel Lee" is a pretty sweet poem.
In the scene, Lara Jean and Peter are exchanging Valentine's Day gifts. At first Peter presents his girlfriend with a heart-shaped necklace, but soon audiences realize he has something else in store. Nervously, Peter unfolds a piece of notebook paper and recites a brief, romantic passage from Poe's famous work. When Lara Jean gleefully thanks him for writing her such a thoughtful, original poem, he doesn't correct her.
It's only until later in the film when Lara Jean's friend from the retirement home, Stormy (played by Holland Taylor in an ingenious bit of casting), breaks the news the poem was not written by a junior in high school, but one of the most famous horror fiction writers of the 19th century. Woops.
For those of you that are curious about what Peter left out, or where his clever substitution of "Annabel Lee" for "Lara Jean" begins to break down, here's the full poem by Edgar Allan Poe:
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And 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;
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
