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The narrator of “Ligeia” is an enigmatic but intense man, whose personality seems almost wholly overrun by his grief over the loss of Ligeia. The narrator describes himself as lost without Ligeia, like a child requiring guidance. All he can speak of or think of is Ligeia—her beauty and their studies. It’s possible, however, to read the narrator’s grief as a form of self-centeredness. Even when describing Ligeia’s overwhelming terror of death, his narration goes back to his own feelings. Most notably, he describes in that moment Ligeia’s pledge of her love for him, once again centering himself. The British novelist D. H. Lawrence in particular has noted how Ligeia seems to be merely an object of inspiration to the narrator. Lawrence notes how the description of Ligeia’s beauty involves comparing her solely to objects, such as “her marble hand.” Part of his obsession with Ligeia does indeed seem to come from his inability to fully understand her, such that she remains a mystery to him. His complete disinterest in Rowena, by contrast, may be attributed to her average beauty, which is devoid of mystery. Scholar Roy P. Basler even suggests that the narrator himself poisons Rowena’s drink in his own bid to conquer death, placing “Ligeia” in relation to other of Poe’s stories that explore dark psychological themes, like “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
Some critics read the narrator as emblematic of a subset of the English Romantics. Proponents of this reading cite the narrator’s obsession with the occult and supernatural, Gothic-tinged taste in decor, and fascination with opium, all of which are associated with the first generation of English Romantics. Part of how he continues Ligeia’s memory is reminiscent of their poetic techniques. He states that her “beauty passed into [his] spirit, dwelling there as a shrine,” and he therefore sees her in phenomena from the natural world, such as a meteor and a vine. Romantic writers saw the natural world as a transcendent and almost divine inspirational force, almost in the same way Ligeia functions for the narrator. It’s possible to take this reading a step further and view the narrator as a Romantic poet memorializing Ligeia in art by telling her story. His narration is full of deliberately poetic diction. For example, when he speaks of Ligeia’s “low musical language,” he combines this with pairs of words that sound musical together, such as “thrilling and enthralling” and “steadily and stealthily,” so that his word choice seems to echo the music of Ligeia’s voice. He thus memorializes or perhaps resurrects her through his self-consciously stylized storytelling.
