The narrator of "Ligeia" has also been reminded of Ligeia by music and literature, and a certain book in particular by Joseph
Glanville. He gives a quote from this volume, which is also the story’s epigram, about the power of the will and how God himself is a will. He has only found the connection between this passage and Ligeia
after lots of contemplation, but now he believes it is something about her intensity. He describes how she is outwardly calm but has outbursts of temper like no other,
and at these moments, her large eyes became huge and her voice took on a melodious, powerful energy.
The connection of Ligeia to the divine gives her a power not justover the narrator but over his whole world. She becomes larger thana human character and transforms into abstract concepts likeenergy and will. Giving his wife this power and comparing her to agoddess on one hand shows the depth of his love. At the same time,it’s unclear if these traits of Ligeia’s were real, or are rather productsof the narrator’s own overpowering sense of loss at her death. It ispossible, in fact, to see Ligeia as a kind of embodiment ofgrief—calm, with outbursts of powerful energy. Poe’s triumph in thestory is to have Ligeia be both—both a kind of supernatural beingand potentially enhanced by the narrator’s grief-filled memories.The narrator of "Ligeia" tells us that Ligeia was also very educated – she read all the time and knew many languages fluently. He has never known such knowledge in a woman and can find no fault in her intelligence, which thrills him to remember. She studied metaphysics and seemed so superior to him in her knowledge that he let her guide him and felt the scope of his knowledge expanding.
Poe gives Ligeia not only a physically intimidating character but alsoan intellectual superiority over the narrator, so that she becomes akind of ultimate figure, both lover, mother and teacher.So
when Ligeia dies, the narrator of "Ligeia" is left alone,
without both his teacher and wife. He is like a lost child. As illness took her strength away, she read less and her once wild eyes grew dim. The narrator knew that she was about to die and struggled to reckon with this truth. Shockingly to him,
Ligeia also struggles to think of death, and her visible terror as she lies on her deathbed is unbearable to watch.
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