Showing results for "Ligeia" in Anthologies & Short Stories

In Ligeia, Edgar Allan Poe delivers one of his most haunting and psychologically charged tales—a story where love, intellect, and sheer will seem to defy the boundaries of death itself. The narrator recalls his mysterious and brilliant wife, Ligeia—a woman of extraordinary beauty, vast intellect, and an almost supernatural intensity of spirit. Her presence is unforgettable, her voice hypnotic, and her eyes—dark, luminous, and unknowable—become an obsession that lingers long after her passing. But death does not bring peace.

"Ligeia" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1838. An unnamed narrator’s beautiful and gifted wife Ligeia, falls ill and dies. After her death, the narrator marries Lady Rowena Trevanion, to whom the same thing happens. As the grief-stricken narrator keeps vigil overnight, he sees Rowena showing signs of life, in a sequence of violent revivals and relapses. When the shrouded Rowena gets up, he recognizes Ligeia, his strange and brilliant first wife. There is, however, a possibility that the narrator experienced a hallucination induced by opium.

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

In this example of the genre, the narrator tells of his adored wife, Ligeia, of her tragic death, and of his remarrying another beautiful woman, Rowena, who after a short and loveless marriage also dies but returns from the dead metamorphosed into his true love, Ligeia.

Der legendäre US-amerikanische Schriftsteller Edgar Allan Poe gilt als Architekt der modernen Kurzgeschichte. Zugleich ist er einer der Begründer der heutigen Kriminal- und Horror-Literatur. In dieser neuen Hörbuchreihe liest Arndt Schmöle mit seiner unverkennbaren Stimme einige der bekanntesten und speziell ausgewählte Original-Texte von Poe in ungekürzter Form. Arndt Schmöle ist Sprecher für zahlreiche Hörbücher, Hörspiele und ist als Synchron- und Off-Stimme in Computer-Spielen. Dokumentar-Filmen und Werbespots zu hören.

Edgar Allan Poe gilt als Ikone der amerikanischen Kurzgeschichte und Mitbegründer dieser literarischen Gattung. Die Elemente des Mysteriösen, Phantastischen, Unbegreiflichen, Grotesken, Rätselhaften, Transzendentalen schwingen immer als subtiles Klanggebilde in seine Erzählungen mit und regen aufgeschlossene Gemüter zum Nachdenken über all die unzähligen Dinge, die wir nicht imstande sind auch nur annähernd zu erklären, wohltuend an.

LIGEIA: In the shackles of an opium dream, a man struggles with the restless spirit of his deceased wife. ELEONORA: In the glory of young love, a valley blooms with life.