Is this appropriate for a child's room? - Page 2

[hildare]

that sounds awesome to me!
i remember encountering that poem for the first time in a grade school anthology, too, so i believe that it is not out of place for a younger age group.
poe was pretty wack-o, but that's why we love him. my personal fave of his, and one that i loved even when i was a kid (but again, i, too am a little warped) is From Childhood's Hour. I would totally put that, or any poem that struck me as meaningful, on my child's wall, and to heck with the naysayers. Annabel is a great name, btw!

[MeepyCat]

Originally Posted by paintedfire

I was an English major (I dual-majored actually, English and Economics) and I guess I missed the day when they went down the list and read the artist's explanation behind each of their works. Here I was thinking that it was up to each individual person to draw their own meaning from literature of any kind. To think I graduated. Oh, the horror!

It's possible I was cutting class that day myself. There isn't any One Official Meaning of any work. But if you look at the facts of that poem - the angels murder the little girl because they're jealous. I'm not pulling that out of my feelings about Edgar Allen Poe or his life story (and don't get me started on the flaws of biographical criticism), or reading deep into the lines to interpret it. These things are stated in the text.

I wouldn't have it as a nursery decoration. Your mileage may vary.

[Artichokie]

My 2 yr old LOVES that poem. I'm certain she doesn't understand it in its entirety, but it has a cadence that appeals to her and we read it often. I think there is nothing wrong with walls adorned with literacy art.

[FoxintheSnow]

Thanks everyone for the replies! paintedfire that is an amazing story that I think will stay with me forever.

A different friend reminded me that her daughter's room is decked out in snow white stuff and that it is the story of a young woman banished to a dark forest, her stepmom tried to kill her and then she is brought back to life. She's saying many fairy tales that we are just used to can be just as morbid.

[mamazee]

I think it's beautiful and really cool, and I wouldn't doubt if that ends up being your dd's favorite poem. And yes, LOTS of kids' stories, particularly the really old ones like fairy tales, are morbid. I think the poem is more beautifully tragic than morbid, though.

[St. Margaret]

I have quotations from cummings' "anyone lived in a pretty how town" in my DD's room. Just the "sun moon stars rain" part, and I painted a picture of those things and hung it up, too. I felt so strongly that the room we would spend all that time in, nursing and changing diapers and playing and sleeping, shouldn't be decorated with commercial things, or even specific random things like cars. I wanted universal and nature. I know the poem is snarky and depressing a bit and about death, but it's also about really living life... and DD loves the quotation.

I think I might feel apprehensive about the poem because I get overly upset about morbid things at times, and I might worry about it scaring me or my DD, but it has SO MUCH to do with your overall impression/takeaway of the poem. If it's fine for you, great!

[stormborn]

Eh, a lot of children's stories/poems are morbid if you look hard enough. FWIW I never took that poem to mean that the angels literally killed her but that it was rationalizing the death of a young person. More of the "God needed another angel" theme. Which I hate personally, having been on the receiving end of it , but it is a lovely poem that won't scar your kid for life.

[NYCVeg]

Has your friend ever read any fairy tales? "Hansel and Gretel" is about parents leaving their children in the forest to die, for Pete's sake. Virtually all of the traditional fairy tales involve death, abandonment, and/or all kinds of evil creatures/witches/etc.

If your CHILD was bothered by the poem, I would remove it. Otherwise... . Children are actually very, very good at self-regulating when it comes to scary or disturbing stuff. My dd (4) is obsessed with Les Miserables, mostly because she likes the song "Castle on a Cloud" from the musical. She's always asking me to tell the story. For awhile, I was censoring it to "protect" her--saying that Fantine couldn't care for Cosette because she was sick. Dd looked at me and said, matter-of-factly, "Maybe she died." And, of course, she was right!

[beckyand3littlemonsters]

Originally Posted by FoxintheSnow

Thanks everyone for the replies! paintedfire that is an amazing story that I think will stay with me forever.

A different friend reminded me that her daughter's room is decked out in snow white stuff and that it is the story of a young woman banished to a dark forest, her stepmom tried to kill her and then she is brought back to life. She's saying many fairy tales that we are just used to can be just as morbid.

Originally Posted by NYCVeg

Has your friend ever read any fairy tales? "Hansel and Gretel" is about parents leaving their children in the forest to die, for Pete's sake. Virtually all of the traditional fairy tales involve death, abandonment, and/or all kinds of evil creatures/witches/etc.

to both

also little mermaid (not disney) the little mermaid dies and if you think about nursery rhymes not sure about where you are but here they sing ring o ring o roses in primary schools, nurseries and toddler groups and that is about people dyeing of the black death.

i think it's a lovely poem, i also thought the song of it was beautiful too.

[zinemama]

English major here, too. I love the rhyme scheme in that poem. Yes, it's terribly morbid. But so what? As a pp said, if it ever bothers your dd, sure, take it down.

[AllisonR]

Just the name EAP sends goose bumps up my back. There is a scene where a woman is gagged and locked in a cage in the cellar and can watch the people coming to try and save her, but because she is bound and can not make a sound, she can not let them know where she is, so they eventually give up and she of course dies painfully, slowly.

The poem is morbid, but lovely. I agree with so many pp's, it's probably more normal than some of the overly commericalized junk in a lot of rooms.

IMO: It is almost "too close to home" to have it when you named your daughter the same. This would affect ME negatively. But that isn't the point. It doesn't matter how it would affect me, it matters only how you and your DD feel about it! Different people are affected by very different things.

[Brittany93]

That's one of his least depressing or "morbid" poems. It's beautiful, and sad. But she'll be able to handle it with you there explaining it to her.

[Purple*Lotus]

Originally Posted by FoxintheSnow

A different friend reminded me that her daughter's room is decked out in snow white stuff and that it is the story of a young woman banished to a dark forest, her stepmom tried to kill her and then she is brought back to life. She's saying many fairy tales that we are just used to can be just as morbid.

Originally Posted by NYCVeg

Has your friend ever read any fairy tales? "Hansel and Gretel" is about parents leaving their children in the forest to die, for Pete's sake. Virtually all of the traditional fairy tales involve death, abandonment, and/or all kinds of evil creatures/witches/etc.

Yes to both I love all things morbid and I would totally put that up on my child's wall if I named her Annabel. I wouldn't worry about what your friend thinks.

[Lady Mayapple]

I am inspired by this thread Like someone else said, mileage may vary but I have no problem with the poem or having it hanging on your daughter's wall. This reminds me of one of Stephen Leacock's short stories called "Softening the Stories for Children". And he discusses this very subject. We always assume that children will be scared of things like death, so we "soften" it-like Grandpa isn't dead he's just "sleeping". Or the men on the ship weren't speared through the heart with the pirate's sword, they were "swept away" or "carried off". Confound my messy house, I'd go and get the story and quote from it...Anyway, in the story Leacock reads a child a story without all the "softening" and of course the child says "I like that much better!"
Are there certain books I wouldn't let my child read in this house? Of course there are-especially certain spell books and botanical books that accompany them. I really don't want my kids going out and cutting down hawthorn trees or pulling up the jimson weed at my sister's place and saying "Mommy what's this pretty flower?" They don't understand the dangers involved with those activities and until they do those books are off-limits. That's about the extent of it though. I don't read any racy romance novels or have any Playboys laying around. We're fairly liberal with literature and music around here. DH loves death metal, I listen to just about everything. My kids love Mozart as much as they do Opeth or Nile. I guess it just depends on what is normal for your house. Pretty much anything goes here

[fyrwmn]

if you like it and it doesn't bother her, by all means keep it! i think it's nice, albeit a little bit morbid. still, like others have pointed out, if you read thru most fairy tales and nursery rhymes, most of them are fairly morbid or have a rather unpleasant background.

[churndash]

I would be reluctant to hang that poem in my daughter's room one, because it's about the death of a child, and two, because the poem is forever linked with the novel "Lolita" in my mind.

Humbert Humbert's first love, Annabel Leigh, is named after the "maiden" in the poem "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe, and their young love is described in phrases borrowed from Poe's poem. Nabokov originally intended Lolita to be called The Kingdom by the Sea,[5] drawing on the rhyme with Annabel Lee that was used in the first verse of Poe's work. A passage at the end of Chapter 1 — "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns" — is also a reference to the poem. ("With a love that the winged seraphs in heaven / Coveted her and me.")

Humbert Humbert, the pedophile protagonist of Lolita, considers his inability to consummate his relationship with his childhood love Annabel Leigh as the reason he is still attracted to prepubescent girls as a result.

I just wouldn't feel comfortable having that poem in my daughter's room.

[VroomieMama]

Originally Posted by Kelmendi

I can certainly empathise with your friend. I find the idea of hanging a poem about the death of a girl named Annabel on the wall of a girl named Annabel pretty disturbing.

But the thing is, it disturbs me as an adult, and as a mother. When I was a kid, I would have loved it if my mom hung something like that on my wall - and if it creeped out my mom's friends, I would have loved it even more!

Haha, I had to laugh at this response!

[FoxintheSnow]

Originally Posted by churndash

I would be reluctant to hang that poem in my daughter's room one, because it's about the death of a child, and two, because the poem is forever linked with the novel "Lolita" in my mind.



Humbert Humbert, the pedophile protagonist of Lolita, considers his inability to consummate his relationship with his childhood love Annabel Leigh as the reason he is still attracted to prepubescent girls as a result.

I just wouldn't feel comfortable having that poem in my daughter's room.

Omg I so didn't to know that especially after I already named her Annabel!

[gaudynight]

I have an Annabel too

I probably wouldn't put it on her wall, but I think I'd feel weirder about it than she would, you know? But if she wanted it I'd probably let her have it.