An Immoderate Dose: Poe Goes Too Far
The significance of Edgar Allan Poe to literature is not a matter to be regarded lightly. To consider the subject of his contribution to literary traditions, past and present, with any degree of completeness is an intimidating prospect, to say nothing of the man's art in its own value to readers (and writers) during the last many decades. Poe's short story Ligeia may rank among a handful of the most poignant tales told since the dawn of time. The wholly consuming passions of the unassuming narrator and his unfathomable wife become the foundation for a tenuous journey to the remote reaches of the human mind, and an eerie life lived on the outer edges of mainstream reality. However, Ligeia fails to reach its potential because the narration and the meta-narration of the narrator's credibility are so overwhelmingly implausible as to eliminate any practical possibility of factuality and thus, according to the literary theory of Tzvetan Todorov, fails to evoke the hesitation which defines fantastic literature, ultimately losing the depth of meaning which would otherwise lend to the richness of the story.
Meaningfully nebulous on many levels, Ligeia is a brilliantly crafted story that stumbles into a literary roadblock and suffers a loss of effectiveness in proportion to the narrator's losses in credibility as the story progresses (and particularly on reflection after the end of the story.) Contrary to canonical delimitations in the fantastic genre, the narrator is simply too far-fetched in many aspects to be believed and thus removes the defining hesitation that would make Ligeia fantastic literature (Todorov 41). In developing implausibility in the narration, Poe simply goes too far and loses that critical hesitation and the possibility for deeper meanings that it brought to the story.
Poe did not set out, though, to write an uncanny tale. Efforts to create uncertainty in the narrative are plainly evident. These efforts, though, mostly hinge upon...
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