Edgar Allan Poe´s Ligeia: a tale for our soul.
Literatura Norteamericana I Dra. Laura P. Gallo Isabel Garrido Martínez
In the “Philosophy of Composition” (1845), Poe tries to systematize the process of writing. His poems and short stories or tales are structured with regard to his own theory. The main aim of this essay is to know about those ideas and another important aspects prevailing in Poe’s fiction by the examination of his short story “Ligeia” (1838).
Main points to consider: •
•
•
Effect and Beauty Narrator’s character The topic of death in “Ligeia”
Poe conceived the poem and his short pieces of fiction as units of short length. He rejected to write long poems, he preferred short stories to be read at one sitting. According to the author, before the moment of writing, it is essential to have a thorough knowledge of the effect required in the audience and to have an accurate ending (Philosophy of Composition). In “Ligeia”, Poe has taken an aesthetic route to achieve a particular effect: Beauty, not truth, was the end of art: a premise that he manifestly tried to follow in his own creative writing (Lamarca 171). The death of a beautiful woman, the return from the grave, the sensations evoked by premature burial are some of the terrifying experiences which he set out to write. Poe has been credited with being one of the earliest writers to deal with what are today called science fiction themes (Lamarca 172). Ligeia’s death is a theme thought by the writer to identify ourselves with the person who is telling the story.
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It is worth stating at this point that the required effect in “Ligeia” is the melancholic beauty; and the most moving theme that joins melancholia and beauty is the death of a beautiful woman. Beauty is a top quality, it’s the unique concept that is able to touch the soul of an individual. The only way by which your soul is elevated is through the effect of beauty (Philosophy of C.) . Poe´s portrait of ladies, depends on the literary aims needed in each moment: “Ligeia”, for instance, is described like a temptress siren of neurotic men (Elliot 270). The narrator carries out a physical and psychological
description
of
Ligeia’s
character,
exalting
and
worshipping her person: “In stature she was tall, somewhat slender, and, in her later days, even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall...” (Ligeia 1372).
Ligeia’s beauty gives emotion to the narrator; her beauty touched his soul and it is elevated. The protagonist tries to explain that feeling: “I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the commonest objects of the universe. It has flashed upon me in the survey of a rapidly -growing vine- in the contemplation of a moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis... in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the feeling” (Ligeia 1374). The protagonist wants to show his idea of beauty with several examples that explain when his soul is elevated.
Another important aspect is connected with the narrator’s character. The narrator represents the self-torture; in this way, the reader can identify himself with the person who is telling the story: “I cannot, for
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my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering” (Ligeia 1372). Point of view is crucial in the text. On the one hand, it is obsevable a psychotic mental experience from the narrator’s internal view; another way at looking at this question is to consider the text a superna tural tale. This confusion about both interpretations (psychological or supernatural tale) leads Poe to be a modernist writer with regard to fiction (Elliot 272).
We should also consider what means “death” in “Ligeia”. “Ligeia” is going to move beyond Death-in-Life to Life–in-Death. The fragment from Glanvill celebrating the “will” gives Ligeia any expectation that meaningless life will not be followed by meaningless death (Hutchinson 25): “Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. “(Ligeia 1370 –Joseph Glanvill-). Ligeia represents the dark principle of life, and Rowena, the light principle of life. The author would have us believe that death can’t be a destruction or just a whim. A “reincarnation” takes place as a symbol that feminine beauty can’t die and must turn into eternal (Perez Gallego 53). Poe’s obsession about death, inclination towards wickedness and madness, and his use of the gothic atmosphere create a romantic environment typical in Poe’s fiction (Elliot 270): “to one entering the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but upon a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and step by step, as the visiter moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself surrounded
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by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong to the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of the monk”. (Ligeia 1378). Poe’s decoration of his abbey in England is the expression of an imagination at its last abberrant and extravagant gasp.
Poe Knew very well that “literature” were amazement, the ability of feeling astonishment by the text. His own dramatic life helped himself to achieve this effect. The legend of chronic alcoholism, drug addiction and sexual perversion surrounding his life does not any longer resist an objective analysis. And yet it is true that his was a morbidly sensitive mind: a kind of living counterpart to many of his characters haunted by melancholia and hallucination (Lamarca 172). Poe married to his beloved Virginia, but she developed tuberculosis; Poe never was recovered from his wife’s death. His life was always a torment; “Ligeia” is an evident reflection of his own life. Bothered by people´s death who he loved, Poe craved for contact with life beyond the grave and Ligeia’s tale served to ilustrate it.
What is important to state in conclusion is that Poe’s main objective is achieved: to elevate our soul through his short story. Poe knew all of us like a bit of mistery and terror in our lives. Emotion is created by the immersion of ourselves in Poe’s “real-unreal” world.
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WORKS CITED −
Elliot, Emory. Historia de la Literatura Norteamericana. Ediciones Cátedra, Madrid 1991.
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Hutchinson, Stuart. The American Scene. Essays on Nineteenth-Century American Literature. New directions in American studies, London 1991.
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Lamarca Margalef, Jordi. The Literature of the United States. From the Colonial Period to the End of the Nineteenth Century. Editorial sintesis, Madrid 1990.
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Perez Gallego, C. Guia de la Literatura Norteamericana. Editorial Espiral Ensayo.
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Robert Lee, A. Edgar Allan Poe. The design of Order . Critical Studies Series, USA 1987.
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Ruland Richard & Bradbury Malcolm. From Puritanism to Postmodernism. A History of American Literature. Penguin Books.
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Edgar Allan Poe. The Philosophy of Composition.
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Edgar Allan Poe. Ligeia.
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