The Fantastic set of death in Poe: a reading of the Morella, Ligéia and Eleonora

Abstract

The work of Edgar Allan Poe is vast and awakens different effects on the reader such as mystery, horror and hesitation. Todorov (1992) considers hesitation the essential characteristic to the fantastic, as it relates to the hesitation felt by the character and thus transferred to the reader. In The Philosophy of Composition (1846), Poe chooses death as one of the universal themes, which also becomes the most poetic when associated with a beautiful woman. In the essay, he describes the stages of the configuration of the poem The Raven, showing how the choice of the elements was inserted in the composition in order to arouse in the reader, the feelings of the lover by the loss of his beloved. Death is a recurring theme in the creation of a poem but the aesthetic treatment given to it allows the poet to promote, through different modes, the irruption of the fantastic. In this sense, this work explores the fantastic setting of female death in “Morela” tales, “Ligeia” and “Eleonora” in order to demonstrate the updating and alterations as to both the topic at hand and some favorable reasons for the irruption of the supernatural such as: the possession, the vampire, the return from beyond the grave.