American Literature: Romanticism Student Midterm Submissions 2016 (midterm assignment) 2. Short Essay 2a. Highlight and analyze a passage from our course readings

Michael Osborne

Traversing Forbidden Boundaries: “Ligeia” as Romance Narrative

          As a young man, I spent years working in a bookstore.  Perhaps because of this fact, when I hear the term romance, I find it difficult to think of anything except the section in that bookstore filled with bare-chested men and swooning ladies.  The first day of class for this course, we were presented with a multitude of examples of how the romance narrative is a ubiquitous element in modern fiction and movies.  Even with all the evidence presented to me, I still didn’t quite grasp the overarching nature of the romance narrative. 

          Objective 1a for the class describes the romance narrative as a: “desire & quest for anything besides ‘the here and now’ or ‘reality,’ a journey to cross physical, social, or psychological boundaries in order to attain or regain some transcendent goal or dream.”  While studying Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia” in order to lead the class discussion, I was, at first, saturated in the gothic elements of the story.  At the conclusion of the story, I reviewed the epigraph a final time, and I realized, quite suddenly, that “Ligeia” was a romance narrative.

“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 (epigraph)

          Poe’s epigraph for “Ligeia,” attributed to Joseph Glanvill even though no supporting evidence has been discovered that confirms this attribution, establishes the premise which allows the eventual climax of the story to function.  The Glanville quote serves not only as a preface, but also features prominently in the story.  Ligeia, wasted away from an unknown illness, uses her last breath to murmur the final line.  “’Man doth not yield him to the angels,’” she says, “’nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will’” (13).  We know from the unnamed Narrator that Ligeia possesses an indomitable will, or as he describes it, a “gigantic volition” (7).  If man only yields to death due to a weakness of will, then as we see at the end of the story, Ligeia is not only one who will not yield, but one who can conquer death and return to the realm of the living.

          This story is not told from Ligeia’s point of view, so we cannot know the exact details of her return, and yet, much can be inferred from the events of the story itself.  Looking again at the definition of a romance narrative, when we compare it to this story, we can see that Ligeia’s return to life matches the listed criteria.  Ligeia refuses to submit completely to death, and this refusal represents her desire for something besides reality.  After her death, we can infer that she undertakes a quest, of some sort, in order to return, and that in this quest, she undertakes a journey that crosses boundaries in pursuit of a transcendent goal, or a goal that is beyond the limits of ordinary experience.  Ligeia’s journey from beyond the grave leads her to cross the veil separating the realm of the living from the realm of the dead in her quest to return to life.