Ligeia

Ligeia research papers focus on the story by Edgar Allen Poe and the many meanings within the story. Poe was a master at gothic literature and Ligeia is a classic. Have Paper Masters produce a custom written research paper on Ligeia for your literature class.

Paper Masters suggests the following topics for a research paper on Ligeia:

• What facts reveal the secret of who Ligeia really is?
• Explain why the narrator creates Ligeia
• Compare Ligeia to Poe's other works of madness through a man's imagination

Poe's story "Ligeia" is about a type of immortality achieved by an individual who is obsessive and who appears to be a little mad. The quote by Joseph Glanvill at the start of Poe's story "Ligeia," remarks, "Man doth not yield [God] to angels nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." This remark is a roundabout way of saying that with a strong enough will, a person does not have to "yield" to death. The rest of the Glanvill quote supports this. The first part of the quote equates immortality with will. Another part of it describes God as a "great will" present in all things because of the "intentness" of their will.The narrator of "Ligeia" has an intentness which brings to life his love Ligeia who has died. As the narrator himself says, he is being affected by the opium he has taken. He also says at times that he is dreaming. In other places, he Recollects aspects of Ligeia's personality or appearance or focuses on physical objects which are reminders of her. So one does not take the immortality the narrator achieves for his lost love Ligeia literally. Rather, one takes it essentially as the delusion of the narrator who is crazed to some degree.

Ligeia's First Impression

Ligeia was the narrator's first wife. She obviously made a deep and lasting impression on him. Although he cannot remember just how or where he met her, he does remember that her "rare learning, ...singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language...made their way into my heart." Although he can't be sure, the narrator believes he first met Ligeia in an old, decaying city near the Rhine River in Germany. Although she made a strong impression on the narrator, he never learned much about her past. That he did not learn her last name, or ever inquire about it, the narrator attributes to the "strength of his affection" for her." However, with this comment of the narrator about his relationship with Ligeia followed by other comments, one begins to see her as essentially a product of his imagination. The reason she has no past is not mainly because of the narrator's affection for her, but because a figment of imagination has no past or origin in real life.