Anyone who has read Edgar Allan Poe can attest to his use of the English language to convey beauty as poignant and surreal to whatever situation life may reveal. His sense of the macabre is elegant and alluring, so much so that we see ourselves as the very target of ethereal forces at work.

The story of ‘Ligeia’ represents Poe’s fascination with love and the occult, the hidden side of life not often visited but which can unexpectedly manifest itself into the realm of the living. Love is enchanting at first and then assembles a castle of obsession. This theme is well represented in the very name of ‘Ligeia’, which borrows heavily from its origins as one of the Sirens in Greek mythology enticing sailors with alluring melodies and enchanted singing, causing blind obsession for the hypnotic sounds as the victims sail closer and closer, only to fall off the…