The eager vehemence of desire for life: death, undeath and corporeal transmutation in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia”

Abstract

This paper will deal with the phenomenon of transmutation, what it consists of, and how it is understood today.

The resulting analysis will be applied to the work of Edgar Allan Poe in which it is most clearly evident: “Ligeia.”

Many scholars have focused on Poe’s concept of death and dying, but this article instead explores the idea of transmutation, or undying, portrayed by Ligeia’s possession of the maiden in the story: Rowena. This analysis will be conducted from three different but interconnected perspectives: anthropological, scientific, and psychological.

With the help of criticism, both of Poe’s contemporaries as well as modern scholars, it will analyze why these undeaths occur in Poe’s work, what different meanings they have, and what they represent in the cultural and literary context of the time.