A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Ligeia"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe's "Ligeia", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781535868082

Book preview

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Ligeia

Edgar Allan Poe

1838

Introduction

Ligeia is an early short story by famed American author Edgar Allan Poe. The story was first published in September 1838 in the American Museum of Science, Literature and the Arts, a periodical launched by two of the author's friends, Dr. Nathan C. Brooks and Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass. Poe heavily revised the story in subsequent editions. It was reprinted in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1839), Phantasy Pieces (1842), and Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (1845). It then appeared in the weekly newspaper New World (1845) and in the Broadway Journal (1845). The story includes a poem that was titled The Conqueror Worm when Poe first published it in 1843 in Graham's Magazine (where he was an editor in 1841–1842). The poem was first incorporated into Ligeia when the story was published in the New World.

Ligeia is a gothic romance told by an unnamed narrator who marries the beautiful and highly intelligent Ligeia. Ligeia, however, falls ill and, shortly before dying, composes a poem—The Conqueror Worm—about mortality and the inescapability of death. The narrator then marries Lady Rowena, but she also falls ill and dies. The grief-stricken narrator stays with Lady Rowena's body overnight, only to watch as she gradually revivifies and is transformed into Ligeia. It has been speculated that readers are to regard the narration as a hallucination induced by opium; some critics have interpreted the story as a satire of gothic fiction. Either way, the story has the eerie, otherworldly feel that characterizes many of Poe's short stories. Poe himself would single out Ligeia as his best tale. Among numerous other editions of Poe's works, Ligeia (variously pronounced Lie-GEE-uh or Li-GAY-uh) is available in the Library of America's Poetry and Tales (1984), edited by Patrick F. Quinn.

Author Biography

Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents who were both itinerant actors. His father soon abandoned the family, and after the death of his mother in 1811, he was taken in by foster parents, John and Frances Allan, a merchant