"Ligeia": A Young Man's Fancy
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
So begins Edgar Allen Poe's "To Helen." Poe claimed to have written it when he was fourteen years old, describing it as "lines written, in my passionate boyhood, to the first, purely ideal love of my soul." And who was the first love who inspired such lines? Was she a fair maiden close to him in years? No, young Edgar was enamored of Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard, the mother of one of his schoolmates.
Could the narrator of Poe's "Ligeia" be a similar young man, and this tale a fantasy that expresses his feelings about his unattainable beloved? While not provable, such an interpretation fits the story well.
When the narrator describes Ligeia, again and again he says "I looked," "I examined," "I regarded," "I scrutinized." He writes of the hours he has spent studying Ligeia's features, looking for the things that give her such a distinctly marvelous appearance. Most of all, he has contemplated, hour after hour, every detail and expression of her eyes. From a grown man,this description of a marriage is hard to accept: does life with a beautiful woman consist of nothing more than looking at her? An unsophisticated boy, though, might imagine precisely this. He is just now discovering the idea of romance. Having found the rapture of gazing into a woman's eyes, he longs to have a lifetime in which to ponder them. He does not pause to think beyond this. He only knows that he is frustrated with sneaking glances at his beloved, and he fancies that if they were married, she would not mind his looking.
The narrator tells rapturously of Ligeia's knowledge and intellect. His feelings about this are also in keeping with those a fourteen-year-old might have. His descriptions of her learning are so glowing as to seem unrealistic. Can the reader really believe that Ligeia "has traversed, and successfully, all the wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science"? It is unlikely that even the most admiring husband would make such a claim, but our hypothetical boy might. Suppose he is an especially studious and thoughtful lad. He meets Ligeia--an intelligent, experienced woman and an excellent scholar. How natural that he should be impressed.
He is new to the studies that now occupy him, and he must be both excited and intimidated by how much he does not yet know. How wonderful it would to this boy "to resign [him]self, with a childlike confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation...." In real life, Ligeia may take time now and then to assist and encourage this bright, promising boy in his studies, in which case he has seen a glimpse of the priceless guidance and inspiration she is able to offer him. And so he dreams of what could be if she would devote herself to instructing him: "that delicious vista by slow degrees expanding before [him], down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, [he] might at length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden!" Perhaps it is this possibility more than anything else that draws him to Ligeia. In telling of their several years of marriage, their studies are the only shared activity that he mentions.
Indeed, if his marriage to Ligeia does not seem a fantasy from what it is, it seems so from what it lacks. It seems to consist of nothing but grand passions. Surely memories of a years-long happy marriage would include some intimacy of the everyday sort. Why does the narrator not mention any fond memories of simple, comfortable things from their life together? It seems that he and Ligeia ahve never shared a private joke, listened sympathetically to each other's grumbles, or dealt with a household dilemma. One is hard put to imagine them eating breakfast together or relaxing by the fire with the evening papers. This one-sidedness would be odd in a real marriage but quite natural in a boy's fantasy.
If their marriage is a wistful daydream, Ligeia's "death" most likely expresses his grief over the futility of his dreaming. It is wretched for him to know that Ligeia will never love him and will never teach what he so desperately wants to learn from her. "Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted." Yes, so it is for him in life, and he cannot forget it for long in fantasy.
Yet he can forget a part of it. In his imaginings, his despair takes a more beautiful and noble form. True lovers torn apart by death! Ah, how they did care for each other! She clinging to life because she cannot bear to part from him.... He sitting at her bedside, helpless as his beloved wife dies.... Who could fail to be moved by this tragic tale? And who could feel anything but sympathy and respect for the bereaved husband's grief? His fantasies allow him to express his sorrow with dignity. The truth--that Ligeia has never looked twice at him, that the adults around him would smile at his "puppy love," that even Ligeia herself, if he were to confess his feelings, would probably be amused--is too degrading.
Who is the Lady Rowena Trevanion? Is she a real person or a figment of the narrator's imagination? He provides few clues about her nature. What little he does tell indicates one thing: the Lady Rowena is Ligeia's opposite. Rowena is "fair-haired and blue-eyed" whereas Ligeia's hair and eyes are black. The narrator refers to her as a "maiden," a term that would scarcely suit Ligeia. And there is his marvelling over Rowena's family having "permitted" her to marry him, as though they, not she, were responsible for the match. One suspects it has been many years since the strong, wise, and passionate Ligeia depended upon her family's judgment and permission.
It could be that Rowena is only a symbol of life without Ligeia and has no existance outside the narrator's mind. Caught up in his despair, he might see gloomy images of the life that lies ahead of him. He might think that he'll probably end up getting stuck with some silly woman who is no more like Ligeia than the man in the moon.
On the other hand, Rowena could be a girl about the narrator's age with whom he is in fact acquainted. He might have something of a fancy for her, and she for him. Perhaps he has even thought vaguely of someday asking her to be his wife. Yet there are times when he detests her for not being Ligeia. Her blue eyes, though perhaps lovely, lack the magnificent, unfathomable expression of Ligeia's. Her sweet conversation cannot match the "wild words" Ligeia utters. Most disappointing of all, his schoolgirl sweetheart cannot teach him as Ligeia could. This fair young maiden cannot guide him in his studies. If she even takes an interest in such things, she is as inexperienced a scholar as himself.
This seems the more likely explanation of Rowena when one considers her death. Yes, it is possible that the narrator would dream up an untimely end for a symbolic non-Ligeia character, but why would he make it so complex and frightening as he makes Rowena's demise? More likely, he would push this figment of the imagination off of a cliff, or drown her, and so be done with it.
With regard to Rowena the real girl, his feelings would be more complex. Even in the midst of his resentful moods, even when he is moved to tell himself that he hates her, he is aware that he is fond of her. He does not quite forget this as he wishes she would die and be replaced by Ligeia. He is disturbed, perhaps ashamed, to find himself wishing such a thing. Even in fantasy, he is reluctant to harm Rowena. Instead, he imagines an incurable illness striking her--he cannot be responsible for that--and he, the dutiful (if not especially caring) husband, tending her. As for whatever finally kills her, he clears himself of all possible blame: not only is he an innocent bystander to supernatural events, he is lost in drug-induced confusion (none of this is meant to suggest that the boy deliberately arranges his daydreams to make himself appear free of guilt; far more likely, he unconsciously invents the images that express his feelings without making him too uncomfortable).
The strongest indication of his mixed desires comes when Rowena flickers between life and death. Again and again he forces himself to assist her; again and again she departs and returns. It is as though he cannot quite bring himself to imagine her as truly, finally dear. And the "unutterable horror and awe" he feels--is this at himself? Could he not be horrified to find himself thinking so heartlessly of his sweet Rowena? Awed that his devotion to Ligeia has proved powerful enough to lead him to such thoughts?
To interpret "Ligeia" in this way gives the story a different tone than it would have if one took it as reality. As an account of true or partially true events, it is a frightfully sinister tale, full of madness and implications of murder. As a young boy's attempt to deal with confusing new feelings, it loses this sinister aspect. "Ligeia" becomes innocent.
Here is my professor's comment at the end:
"What an intriguing premise! You handle it quite well. Still, it is tough to prove--a lucky thing with literary analysis."