Posted by grace on January 14, 19103 at 02:16:32:
In Reply to: Ligeia posted by Lolita on January 17, 19100 at 06:58:47:
: Hi everyone this is Lolita. I just read "Ligeia" and would like to share my humble opinions with all of you.*_*...
: Please give me your valued comments...
: The story ˇ§Ligeiaˇ¨ is written with a very fine and delicate pen, which creates an atmosphere of mystery, loom, and ghastly exquisite. Lady Ligeiaˇ¦s image, which embodies an unusual type of beauty, is presented so minutely and movingly, love between the narrator and Ligeia is so supreme and passionate, and Ligeiaˇ¦s vigorous life so unyieldingly, that, all together make the reader feel they have entered a phantasmagoric world not belong to the mortals.
: What is beauty? The narrator quotes Baconˇ¦s words to serve as his viewpointˇXˇ§ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportions.ˇ¨ And Ligeia certainly owns this irregularity. However, although Ligeiaˇ¦s appearance is adorable enough, that she is tall and slender in stature; her skin rivals the purest ivory; her demeanor and figure are beautiful, her nose outlining delicately, lip soft and sweet, and smiles serene, placid, and radiant, and eyes black and brilliantly, we should still note that the ˇ§ strangenessˇ¨ of Ligeia lies in the ˇ§ expression,ˇ¨ namely, her spirituality, mystery, and most importantly, her will.
: It is mystical and romantic enough that Ligeiaˇ¦s family is from one of the ancient nobles. In addition, as Ligeiaˇ¦s husband, nevertheless, the storyteller does not know her last name. Evermore, ˇ§ she came and departed like a shadow, I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her delicate hand upon my shoulder,ˇ¨ he writes. Yet evidently this man is fully obsessed with this mystique He indulges himself to every move of Ligeia, even craves for seeing into her soul and gain the complete knowledge of her soul through the long gaze upon her ˇ§ shining, divine orbs,ˇ¨ but in vain, for she is one unfathomable.
: Only the one with a feeble will succumbs to death, and this never comes to Ligeia! In spite of her ethereality, she has the strong will, the ˇ§ gigantic volition,ˇ¨ that even surpasses the bravest. This partly owes to her born nature, and partly thanks to the domination of Venus. In her illness, this lady is so relentless to fight for life. She wrestles and desire wildly for ˇ§lifeˇXfor lifeˇXbut for life,ˇ¨ inasmuch as love for the man in a bosom such as hers, and that ˇ§ love would have reigned no ordinary passion.ˇ¨
: Should the giant will succumb to a power more stern? Should the invulnerable love between them crash into pieces after Ligeiaˇ¦s death? The narrator marries Rowena he loves little and sleeps with her in that spectral wedding room while he is still haunted unceasingly by the memory flakes of Ligeia. Such is humanity that he cannot let go of the past, but cannot carry out the faith either. We have no right to blame, since almost all mortals are as fragile as the narrator. And at least, he never forgets her, so how can we ask too much? Yet it canˇ¦t be more right that jealousy kills. Ligeiaˇ¦s love is so impregnable that she never wants her love shared or stained. Such is the power of a possessive true loveˇXif you truly love one dear. She comes back and revives her life with the dead rival-in-loveˇ¦s body. Suddenly the passage quoted three times in this tale again jumps before our eyes. ˇ§And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knows 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 angles, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.ˇ¨ˇXJoseph Glanvill.
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