Diff between Poe's "Ligeia" and revisions

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Diff between Poe's "Ligeia" and revisions

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2003

Answers

First the big addition is "The Conqueror Worm" which might not fit as well as "The Haunted Palace" did "The Fall of the House of Usher" but other changes are made to the early part of the story as well. Preceding the death of Ligeia note the differences(mainly in emotional degree) in the portrayals of Ligeia and the narrator. We get the dsense in the first version that he may not have loved her in any degree to match her wild devotion. The fierce weirdness of Ligeia(more like Morella in the first version) is less witch and more pitiable abnd the man, though still a lesser lover, more apreciative of her and her sufferings and her love.

Did this have to do with Poe's lengthy heartrending sojourns over the sickbed and deathbed of Virginia Poe where reality tempered his own weak love and theoretical attitudes? In any event, the second version is softened a bit and more lyrical, though the gothic shoch is unrelieved. Poe makes it more a work of exotic art and more personal at the same time.

Worth studying line by line all the changes for more reflection. First published in 1840, later revised and published in the new form after his death, a work HE considered one of his very best.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2003


"Ligeia" was first published in the September 1838 issue of the Baltimore American Museum. Although the story would remain essenitally the same in later publications, the first printing of the tale did not include Poe's poem "The Conqueror Worm," which was incorporated into the text when the story was published in the February 15, 1845, issue of the New York World and later reprinted in the September 27, 1845, issue of the Broadway Journal.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2003

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