ligeia:the invisible woe

In this thread I would like to focus on some points concerning the character of Ligeia from many angles and through many devices.

From the very beginning the narrator introduces the quote GLanvill

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And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. Joseph Glanvill

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in the middle of the section that concerns Ligiea he spoke about the relation of these words to her character

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Length of years, and subsequent reflection, have enabled me to trace, indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An intensity in thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition which, during our long intercourse, failed to give other and more immediate evidence of its existence. Of all the women whom I have ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me --by the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice --and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which she habitually uttered.

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Ligeia uttered twice the same words addressing God directly and in the fetters of death.

from the very beginning my impression on the whole story is that of a man who tries to transcend death , life itself by the power of his own will, imagination and phantasy( as all writers). The introduction is a prophecy that comes true in the fold of the story as it develops .
The phantasmagoric effect is dominant in the whole story not only when he becomes slave to Opium; in the second section it is portrayed as a result but in the first section it is a means in which he transcends , time , space , and the material world . I have never felt that he really loves Ligiea for what she is but for her "effect "on him .Ligiea's beauty is always depicted as a bridge between his world ( the world of imagination and fantasy ) and the material world ; for that reason maybe he lost his equilibrium after her deat

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. I mean to say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from many existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt always aroused within me by her large and luminous orbs.

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It was the radiance of an opium-dream --an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered vision about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos.
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The long descriptive passages are popmed with elements that contribute to the creation of a figure that exists only through his perception and his own feelings. The first layer of his description is taken as a description of an obsessed lover but it is strange " at least to me " that this description is full of " auditory and visual images only " ; we've never found tactile ( the only example is where she puts her marble hand on him )and olfactive one.
The presence of this cluster of imagery usually gives us a sense of concretness , phisycality that belongs to the material world and everday life.
Moreover what still really after the passage of time is " the smell " : we can never forget the smell !! I focus here on the smell because it has to do with sexuality (their relationship) . DARK MUSE said sth about this point : she said that women at that time did not enjoy sex , yes but men did ;and we ask ourselves how it comes that this passionate man didn't mention anything about it .

The whole stuff above is to say that Ligeia is a " means " to the romantic , capricious man .
In my first reading I considered Liegia as a fictional invention whom the writers make then they worship and become its slave.!;) And this is the case of our narrator ; he popmed her character with everyting he likes ,he wishes to have ,(immortality, etheral world... everything he read and he knew, , : he moulded her in the shape he likes as God ,so he becomes the equal of God in his ability of creation through his own will and imagination (the Glanvill quote) but unfortunately he discovered later on that the complete surrender of his creation is just an apparent demenor and she is wild , rebellious, and strives for life (material life ) and when she stives for life ,where he has no power, he saw that she must die
But still he is obssessed by his creation ; he couldn't bring himself to the condition of the material world through his marriage.The god is completely enslaved to his most beloved creation : ligeia.I went to far???:idea::idea::idea:

In my second reading I tried to depict something that has to do with the real existence of Ligiea .
The scene of her death is very suggestive on this level .


How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to themselves and fly away!

then here tells us that everything mentioned before was to justify sth???
The extraordinary description of his beloved is a mere perception that he has taken as well-grounded but for his disappontment it flies away.
what is its effect on him??? it is a moment of recogintion and the reversal is going to take place in this story.

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Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted. Her presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly luminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in which we were immersed. Wanting the radiant lustre of her eyes, letters, lambent and golden, grew duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone less and less frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a too --too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers became of the transparent waxen hue of the grave, and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the gentle emotion.

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in this passage the impression evoked is that her " effect " on him becomes dull ; transcendalism is a key word to understand the importance of her effect and comparing the first lines with the last(radiant luster eyes with wild eyes ,and so on...)

I saw that the must die
I read your comments upon this declarative statement ; I think u underestimate its value and function.

Why didn't he say she would die ; isn't the proper word ?
Just notice that in the next section "he mentioned the presence of physichians, treatment; it is not the case here , why ????
actually , I took this declarative statement as " SENTENCE OF DEATH" made by him upon her.
She grew ill then he saw that the must die( there is no interval as in the second section, revivcation)

the description at the moment of her death and her poem are the devices used to proove my point of view concerning this matter:he killed her.

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I saw that she must die --and I struggled desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of the passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more energetic than my own. There had been much in her stern nature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would have come without its terrors; --but not so. Words are impotent to convey any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled with the Shadow.

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she struggeled with Azrael, the angel of death: The struggel is not physical, since Azreal is an angel and in our fear of deatth we struggle emotionally

on the other hand , look at what he said : she wrestled with the Shadow!
The wrestling implies physical contact , agressivity, and trying to defend oneself.

the shadow of whom,: in the next section he mentioned the shadow too but not Azrael ;why didnt he say she wrestled with Azreal as the previous line???though we don't wrestle with Azreal at the moment of our death!! we struggle.

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I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle.

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would have soothed --I would have reasoned;

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would have reasoned on what at that moment and at that pitiable scene??
let's imagine the scene .

but, in the intensity of her wild desire for life, --for life --but for life --

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solace and reason were the uttermost folly

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look at the variation in his tone and his emotional and intellectualstruggle : he moves from pain to asling him self to soothe and reason on sth ,
it is the sound of his consciousness that asked him to reason and soothe but there is no back to him : it is just a folly.
he cannot accept the recognition of her wild desire for life.
the wilderness again and again .

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was shaken the external placidity of her demeanor

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here comes the recongintion of her double nature : her placid demanor is only external , from within she is a differnt person; this make us remember the methaphor of the star " double and changeable"

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There had been much in her stern nature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would have come without its terrors; --but not so.

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these lines revealed the nature of their relationship ;
in that moment I felt that he is sadistic and narcissist;it really shocked me !! she should have accepted death with no terror at all !! what for : TO IMPRESS HIM MORE !!


Her voice grew more gentle --grew more low --yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild meaning of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkened entranced, to a melody more than mortal --to assumptions and aspirations which mortality had never before known.

what are those WILD WORDS HE WOULD NOT WISH TO DWELL UPON???(Glanvil words again )

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That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have been easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully impressed with the strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by such confessions? --how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them, But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing --it is this eager vehemence of desire for life --but for life --that I have no power to portray --no utterance capable of expressing.

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For long hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by such confessions? --how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them, But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing --it is this eager vehemence of desire for life --but for life --that I have no power to portray --no utterance capable of expressing.

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this word catch my attention : it implies the fact that u are preventing someone to do sth ?she is not holding his hand in a kind way as lovers do ;and it is the first time that he mentions her direct speech to him but ironically he felt that he doesnt derserve her love ; why there is this SENSE OF GUILT in his speech ? why there is this ffeling that he deserved her loss ??

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But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate

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why he cannot bear to dilate upon this subject ??????


look at these lines

But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate.

Let me say only, that in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all unmerited, all unworthily bestowed,

he regrets his love to her because of the recognition of her real passion: alas all unmmerited . all unworthy bestowed.I at length recognized the principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing --it is this eager vehemence of desire for life --but for life --that I have no power to portray --no utterance capable of expressing.

again and again to the same point : her desire for life is earnest and her demeanor in only external . she loves life more than him.!

This section has to do with her poem; it is very significant and most importantly is that it is reliable.
It is where Legiea is allowed to speak her voice not through the conscouisness or the perception of the narrator.

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At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me, peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses composed by herself not many days before. I obeyed her. --They were these:
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly --
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

That motley drama! --oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased forever more,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness and more of Sin
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! --it writhes! --with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Any of various small animals or insects that are pests; e.g. cockroaches or rats

An appendage of insects that is capable of injecting venom; usually evolved from the legs
Toxin secreted by animals; secreted by certain snakes and poisonous insects (e.g., spiders and scorpions)




Out --out are the lights --out all!
And over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

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the mood of Legeia is happy despite her suffering and her sickness : it is a gala night.

"within the lonesome latter years"
this is only happy night within her lonely life: the night of her death!!
she wasn't happy as we expected and she was very lonely!
it contradicts the impression conveyed by the description of the romantic lover!!
The angels are drowned on tears ; they are crying maybe on her ,watching this play of hopes and fears; bty I firstly entiltled the thread " LIGIEA, the story, a play of hopes and fears ".

Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

is she herself the puppet that is flapping from out her Condor wings?
Did she recognize that she becomes a mere puppet when giving up her will " the condor wings"

What are the vast formeless things here ? it makes me remember the shadow .

Invisible woe; the one who gives up his freedom and will to a formless things would be a mere puppet and this is an invisible woe.

what has to do theses lines with her condition and with our story ?
it is just a poem ; persumably NO
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I haven't finshed yet , I am just tired.







of ligBecome pale and sicklyht) lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble



"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these lines --"O God! O Divine Father! --shall these things be undeviatingly so? --shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and parcel in Thee? Who --who knoweth the mysteries of the will with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from her lips. I bent to them my ear and distinguished, again, the concluding words of the passage in Glanvill --"Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
She died; --and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very far more than ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals

It is late here and I want to read it in fully before I post.

I am waiting for you (all of you).

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Originally posted by caddy caddy on 10/12/08 at 10:02 AM
I have never felt that he really loves Ligiea for what she is but for her "effect "on him .Ligiea's beauty is always depicted as a bridge between his world ( the world of imagination and fantasy ) and the material world ; for that reason maybe he lost his equilibrium after her deat

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That is a good point, but I maintain that Ligeia is a real person. I think she is a bridge, but between his world (material) and her world (different background, ethnicity, and knowledge). A man truly in love would describe his wife/woman/girlfriend is glowing terms. This woman would ‘affect’ him deeply.

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Originally posted by caddy caddy on 10/12/08 at 10:02 AM
The long descriptive passages are popmed with elements that contribute to the creation of a figure that exists only through his perception and his own feelings.

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I maintain he is describing a real person, but he is tainted with Cupid’s arrow and cannot see any fault with Ligeia thus it seems that he just made her up.

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Originally posted by caddy caddy on 10/12/08 at 10:02 AM
The first layer of his description is taken as a description of an obsessed lover but it is strange " at least to me " that this description is full of " auditory and visual images only " ; we've never found tactile ( the only example is where she puts her marble hand on him )and olfactive one.
The presence of this cluster of imagery usually gives us a sense of concretness , phisycality that belongs to the material world and everday life.

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However the memory of the narrator has already been called into question by himself. He stated it was many years ago and he had an addiction to opium. He never told us how long he was removed from the incident or how many years he used opium. In each of these cases, he simply cannot recall the tactile and olfactory memory since sight and sound is a far bigger portion of the brain.

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Originally posted by caddy caddy on 10/12/08 at 10:02 AM
Moreover what still really after the passage of time is " the smell " : we can never forget the smell !! I focus here on the smell because it has to do with sexuality (their relationship) . DARK MUSE said sth about this point : she said that women at that time did not enjoy sex , yes but men did ;and we ask ourselves how it comes that this passionate man didn't mention anything about it .

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It was a subject that no one felt comfortable talking about. Men showed their passion “out of the bedroom”. Sex was purely for procreation, not recreation. During Poe’s time, a woman’s gynecologist would just use his hand to diagnosis her health or illness. The doctor was not allowed to look at all.

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Originally posted by caddy caddy on 10/12/08 at 10:02 AM
The whole stuff above is to say that Ligeia is a " means " to the romantic , capricious man .
In my first reading I considered Liegia as a fictional invention whom the writers make then they worship and become its slave.!

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Almost sounds like the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. I agree that some artist have created characters that, to them, seem alive. But the created character does not ‘strive for life’. The character comes alive through the artist’s work. Others (those who read, look, and even talk about the work) may want the character to come alive, but the character itself does not.

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That is a good point, but I maintain that Ligeia is a real person. I think she is a bridge, but between his world (material) and her world (different background, ethnicity, and knowledge). A man truly in love would describe his wife/woman/girlfriend is glowing terms. This woman would ‘affect’ him deeply.

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Yes , the next passages tell us that she is a real person " more probably".
This was my first impression from my first reading .

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I maintain he is describing a real person, but he is tainted with Cupid’s arrow and cannot see any fault with Ligeia thus it seems that he just made her up.

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but later on he does!!

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However the memory of the narrator has already been called into question by himself. He stated it was many years ago and he had an addiction to opium. He never told us how long he was removed from the incident or how many years he used opium. In each of these cases, he simply cannot recall the tactile and olfactory memory since sight and sound is a far bigger portion of the brain.

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maybe, however he could have described " the effect it has nothing to do with the memory of her smell , her touch for instance " as he is doing with the other senses .
I think it is intented by Poe to add more spirituality to her character , doubt, mystery ...

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Almost sounds like the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. I agree that some artist have created characters that, to them, seem alive. But the created character does not ‘strive for life’. The character comes alive through the artist’s work. Others (those who read, look, and even talk about the work) may want the character to come alive, but the character itself does not

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I have no idea about the characters you mentioned ; however the point is that she strives for life " outside the frame he put for her " whether in reality or metaphorically . It can go both way .