Edgar Allan Poe Vs. D.H. Lawrence on the topic of "love"

PART I:

In his short story entitled "Ligeia," Edgar Allan Poe created a love relationship that truly startled the audience. The lovers of the story, the narrator, whose name remains unknown, and Ligeia are involved in a rather strange and unfamiliar relationship.

The love relationship between the two lovers is not the type that would commonly be seen. As a matter of fact, this connection may not even be qualified to be called "love." Rather, it is merely an obsession; an infatuation; and more appalling, a form of worship. The narrator tells the audience how he falls in love with this lady, Ligeia. The dimensions of her very being "made their way into [his] heart by paces so steadily and stealthily progressive that they have been unnoticed and unknown" (225). Yet these are the symptoms of falling in love. When the feelings enter the heart, going unnoticed, it is love that is being dealt with.

Illustration for "The Black Cat" by Aubrey Beardsl...

Canon Love

English: Edgar Allan Poe.

In addition, Poe, the author of the story, makes it clear that what the narrator and Ligeia share is true love. To the readers though, it may be everything else but, for what is portrayed is a truly eccentric relationship.

Throughout the text, the narrator goes on to describe how lovely and beautiful Ligeia is. It is her "placid cast of beauty" that the narrator speaks of. Compliments on the beauty of the beloved are great. However, when it becomes so intricate because of infatuation, it becomes a form of worship. In this light, the audience portrays the narrator as the worshipper, and Ligeia, as the goddess. The narrator even describes Ligeia's lips as "heavenly." In addition, he speaks of "every ray of holy light" falling upon her "serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of all smiles" (227). He...