Transcendence Downward an Essay on Usher and Ligeia

8/19/2019 Transcendence Downward an Essay on Usher and Ligeia

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Modern Language Studies

Transcendence Downward: An Essay on "Usher" and "Ligeia"Author(s): Beverly VoloshinSource: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Summer, 1988), pp. 18-29Published by: Modern Language StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3194965Accessed: 16/01/2010 07:06

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2/13

Transcendence

ownward:

n

Essay

n

"Usher"

nd

"Ligeia"

Beverly

Voloshin

AmericanRomanticism

egisters

a

fascinating

ransformation

f

traditional otionsof transcendence.There

are

many

reasons

or

this,

not

the least of which is that

by

the

early

nineteenth

entury

he

successof

the

scientificrevolution

and

the

dissemination f

empiricist

psychology

had

made

it

almost

impossible

to

continue

to

conceive of the universe

as a

hierarchy.

For

example,

Newton's

description

of what

exists

n

terms of

mathematicalrelations

of mass

in

time

and

space

has

no

up

or

down,

higheror lower,literally

or

metaphorically, espiteNewton'squite

firm

belief

in

God.

Although

several

aspects

of Newtonian

science

were

not

mechanistic,'

he

levelling

tendency

of Newton's work

is

evident

in

the

mechanistic

nterpretation

f Newton's

physics

which

predominated

n

the

eighteenthcentury.

This

levelling

tendency

of

the new science is also

apparent

n

Locke's

EssayConcerning

Human

Understanding,

hich was

in

part

an

attempt

o

construct

a

psychological

model

consonant

with the

new

science-especially

in Locke's

denial

of innate deas and his

concep-

tion

that all

knowledge

is built

up

from atomisticsensations

hrough

he

mind'spower of reflection.

In this

connection

it is

important

o

recall the late

popularity

of

Locke's

Essay

n

New

England.

t

was the

Essay

which

left

its

impress

on

the

preeminent

form of intellectual ife

in

New

England

from the

late

eighteenth

century

through

the first

decades

of the

nineteenth,

that

is,

religion.

It

was

in

the late

eighteenth

century

hat

Jonathan

Edwards

was

seen

as

having ncorporated

he

sensationalism

f

Locke

into

Calvinism.2

In this

period

at Yale

College,

Locke's

Essay

was

prescribed

o ward

off

the

skeptical

and

materialistic onclusions

which

an uninstructed

mind

mightderivefromtheEssay,though heresultswere often theoppositeof

President

Stiles's

ntention.3

At

the

beginning

of

the nineteenth

century,

a

particular

constructionof the

Essay

was taken as

the cornerstone

of

Unitarianism;

hroughout

he first

decades

of the nineteenth

entury,

he

literature

f

liberalProtestantism

s

drenched

n

references

and allusions

to

Locke,

and as Transcendentalism

merged

as a

dissenting

movement

n

the

Unitarian

anks,

here

were

almost

as

frequent

attackson Locke.4

n

the

preliminary

essay

to

his

edition

of

Coleridge's

Aids

to

Reflection

(1829),

James

Marsh

pointedly

argued

that

Lockean

metaphysics

is

incompatiblewithspiritual eligion, husattackingboth Unitarianism nd

the

infusionof

Lockeanism

nto

orthodoxy.

This

was the most

important

book

for

introducing

o

New

England

ntellectuals

Coleridge's

hought-

and

through

t,

German

dealism.)

In

sum,

the

empiricistpsychology

of

Locke,

by

leaving knowledge

on

the

plane

of sensationand

reflection,

seemed

to block all avenues

to

a

transcendent

eality,

conceived

in

either

Christian r

Platonic

erms,

and

it was

precisely

Locke's

heory,

n

its late

vogue

in

American ntellectual

ife,

against

which

the Transcendentalists

revolted;

yet

while Locke's

empiricism

reated

a

barrier o

a

transcendent

18


3/13

reality,

it

also

pointed

the

Romantics

n

a

new

direction,

down

into

the

realm of

sensoryexperience.

When he writersof the 1830s

and1840s

ried

o

get

out of the

block

universe

or

dead level

of

eighteenth-century

mpiricism, hey produced

curious

and

paradoxical figures

of

transcendence.

In

Nature

(1836),

Emerson,

that

representative

man of

Transcendentalism,

wrestleswith

the

problem

of

conceiving

of

transcendence

which is not

hierarchical

nd

static.

Emersonretains

he

hierarchical

meaning

of

transcendence

n

his

model of

higher

uses of

nature,

but he also

argues

or

the

beauty

andvalue

of

the

common

and for

the

inherent

meaning

of

such

devalued

phenom-

ena as

"sleep,

madness,

dreams,

beasts,

sex,"

thereby

moving

us down

a

traditional

hierarchy

of

being.5

He can

resolve the

potential

problem

of

the

locus of the

transcendental

ategory

of

Spiritthrough

his

images

of

circles and

circular

power,

but in

leaving

moot the

question

whether

nature

really

exists,

Emerson

seems to

leave

his

model of

transcendence

without a base.

In such

tales

as

"Ligeia"

1838

and later

significantly

evised)

and

"The Fall of

the

House

of Usher"

(1839),

Poe

presents

transcendental

projects

which

threaten o

proceed

downward

rather han

upward.

The

tales have a

paradoxical

tructure

n

which

transcendences

figured

as an

outward or

downward

movement,

as the

method

for

going

beyond

the

universe

of

Lockean

empiricism

s

to

go through

t.

Despite

the

vogue

of

German dealism,Emerson and Poe are closer to the Anglo-American

tradition

than

has

been

generally

acknowledged.

In

Nature,

Emerson

baseshis

transcendentalism

artly

on

a

refurbished

mpiricism-that

is,

a

purifying

of

the

sensory

apparatus,

as

in

the

famous

image

of the

trans-

parenteyeball;

for Poe

too

sensation s

virtually piritualized,

nd sensa-

tion

replaces

spirit

or reason

as

the

privileged

faculty,

but

for Poe

the

natural

process

which

promises

transcendence

s

preeminently-and

paradoxically-that

of

decomposition

or

decay.6

In "The

Fall of

the

House

of

Usher,"

metaphorical

movement

downward nto apeculiar ensations thekeynoteof thebeginningof the

tale,

and such

apsing

will

itself

figure

as

the

ground

of

transcendence.

The

narrator's

ccount

begins

with

his

feeling

of

"depression,"

hich

finds its

parallel

in

the

setting:

the

day

is

"dull,

dark

and

soundless,"

without

ordinary

ensory

stimulation,

and

similarly,

he

scene

is

oppressive

and

melancholic,

without

vitality.

The

narrator an

compare

his

experience

"to no

earthly

sensation

more

properly

than

to

the

after-dreamof

the

reveller

upon

opium,

the

bitter

lapse

into

every-day

life-the

hideous

dropping

off of

the veil."7

t

is

in

several

respects

the

experience

of

fall,

fallingaway,aftermath,asthoughsomehighpointof life werepast,and

everything-Roderick

and

Madeline,

he

House,

the

atmosphere-seems

to

be

in

the last

stages

of

decay.

The

narrator's

"depression"

and

"unredeemed

dreariness

of

thought"

also

represent

a

falling

off

from,

indeed an

inversion

of,

the

sublime

experience,

which

the

narrator

ould

have

expected,

as he

says,

from

"the

sternest

natural

mages

of

the

desolate

or

terrible"

273).

The

narratorwants

to

believe

in

natural

ause,

yet

he

cannot

even

by

an

effort

of

the will

have

one of

the

definitive

Romantic

experiences

of

nature-

19


4/13

transcendence

y

sensing

n

nature

higherpowers.

Just

as his

expectation

of the sublime

experience

nverts

tself,

so

his

change

of

position

does not

produce

the

new sensationhe

anticipates

but

rather

a

deepening

of his

original

ensation,

when

he

sees the

images

of

the House inverted

n

the

tarn. The narrator's xperiencehas none of the exaltingor expansive

quality

of

the

experience

of

the

natural

ublime.

In line with

these inversions

n

the

opening

scene,

the narrator's

descriptions

re studded

with

paradoxical

mages

combining

he

spiritu-

ally high

with

the ow. The narrator

ees the

atmosphere

f the house

as "a

pestilent

and

mysticvapour"

which

is

"leaden-hued"

276).

Mysticdesig-

nateshidden

or

higher

power

(as

ater

n

the

"mystic ymbol"

and

"mystic

sign"

of The

Scarlet Letter

and

Moby-Dick),

or as

Poe writes

in

his

Drake-Halleck eview

(1836),

one of the

major

tatements

f

his

aesthetic

theory,the mysticis synonymouswith theideal,thehighestcategoryof

being.8

On

the other

hand,

pestilent

draws attention to infection

and

decay,

and lead

signifies

what

is

base

or

unredeemed

n

many

schemas,

and

most

notably

n that of

alchemical ransformation.

n

alchemy,

gold

is

the

perfected

metaland

sign

thatthe alchemisthas attained he

highest

truth;

old

is

traditionally

he

mystic

metal.

As

the narrator

s

ushered nto

the "recesses

of

[Usher's]

spirit"

he

is

moved to describe Roderick

in

similarlyparadoxical

erms:Roderick's

s

"a mind

from

which

darkness,

as

if

an inherent

positive quality,

poured

forthon

all

objects

of

the moral

andphysicaluniverse n one unceasingradiationof gloom.""Anexcited

and

highly

distempered

deality

hrew

a

sulphureous

ustre

over

all"

282).

Again,

the

mystic

or

ideal

is

tinged

with

what

is

materialor

base,

and

sulphur,

as

one of the

ingredients

or

beginning

he alchemical

process,

s

another

ign

of what

s

as

yet

unredeemed.9Roderick

appears

o

be

drawn

into the

process

of non-transcendent

ransformation

ffecting

the House.

As

the narrator's

mages

combine

the

traditional

pposites

of the

spiritually

high

with the

materially

ow,

Roderick's

xplanations

uggest

the

interdependence

of

the fall and

rise

of

thought.

In

one

of the

less

abstractof Roderick'sworks,"TheHauntedPalace,"henarrator etects

"in

the under

or

mystic

current

of its

meaning

.. a full

consciousness n

the

part

of

Usher,

of the

tottering

of

his

lofty

reason

upon

her throne"

(284).

Here the

experience

of fall-now Roderick's-is

represented

o

itself.

It is a fall

of

order

nto

chaos,

reason

nto

madness,

nnocence nto

experience.Curiously,

"arising"

rom thisballadabout the fall of

thought

are certain

suggestions

which culminate

n

Roderick's

xpression

of

his

heretical

belief

in

the sentience of

matter,

even that

of "the

kingdom

of

inorganization,"

doctrine

we

might

term the

organization

and

rise

of

thought.Sentiencedevelopsfrom the "collocation" r"arrangement"f

the

parts

of the ancestralhome of

Usher,

and

its

evidence

is

precisely,

or

Roderick,

his

own

fall: "The result

was

discoverable,

he

added,

in

that

silent,

yet

importunate

and

terrible nfluence which for centuries

had

moulded the destiniesof

his

family,

and

which made him what

I

now saw

him-what he

was"

(286-7).

The

evidence

for

the

ordering

of

thought

s

Roderick's

xperience

of

his own

disintegration,

s

represented

or

exam-

ple

in his

ballad,

so

that he

is

brought

nto relationor

harmony

with

the

whole

by losing

his

original

ordered

and harmonious unctions.

20


5/13

As

Roderick's

xplanations

ffect

a

crossing

of

exalted

hought

and

base

matter,

so

the

narrator's

anguage

or

describing

his own

experience

complicates

conventional

uppositions

boutthedistinction

f mind

and

body.

The

narrator's

depression"

ecasts

he

experience

of

Coleridgean

dejectionor visionarydreariness f Romanticpoetry,for dejection s a

psychological

or

spiritual

tate,

but

depressionnicely

blends notions

of

psychological

and

physical

cause.

The

same is

true of the

narrator's

confession hathe is "unnerved"

y

the

sight

of

the Houseof

Usher,

or

the

nerves

are

the

connectionbetween consciousnessand

physicality.

The

narrator's

nnerved onditionand

nervous

agitation

grow

moreand

more

like Roderick's

tate,

raising

he

question

whether he narrator

s

perceiv-

ing

Roderick

through

the lense of his own

condition

or

whether

the

narrator

s

being

affected

by

whatever

it

is

that

affects

Roderick.

The

languageof sensationhroughouthetalesuggestsanintimateconnection

of

the

mental

and the

physical

without

allowing

or

conclusions bout

the

direction

of

causeand

effect;

this

anguage

n

fact

intensifies he

presump-

tion

of

connection amiliar

n

Lockean

psychology,

while a

distinguishing

markof

Kantian

nd

post-Kantian

dealism

s

the

conception

of the mind

as

having

powers

apart

from

and

transcending

ensation.

The narrator'snitial

discussion

of

transcendence

"that...

poetic

...

sentiment,

with

which

the

mind

usually

receives even the

sternest

natural

mages

of

the

desolateor

terrible"

273])

provides

a

link

between

him and the alien Roderick, who, in the traditionof his family,has a

singular

emperament

which

might

be

described

as

transcendental.

[H]is

very

ancient

family

had

been

noted,

time out

of

mind,

for

a

peculiar

sensibility

of

temperament,

displaying

tself,

through

ong

ages,

in

many

worksof

exalted

art,

and

manifested,

of

late,

in

repeated

deeds

of

munifi-

cent

yet

unobtrusive

charity,

as

well as

in

a

passionate

devotion to the

intricacies,

perhaps

even

more

than

o the

orthodox

and

easily

recogniza-

ble

beauties,

of

musical

science"

275).

The

family's

ensibility

manifests

itself

on

the

plane

of

the

Beautiful,Good,

and

True,

as

if

rising

above

mundanereality.

Roderick

himself

is

associated

with

the

abstract,

atemporal,

and

ideal.

Roderick's

world s one

of

abstract

pattern

n

black,

white,

and

gray.

His

art

works

remarkably

nticipate

he abstract

movements

in

poetry,

music,

and

painting.

He

himself is a

man of

ideality,

as

the

narrator

remarks,

and

as shown

in

phrenological

erms

by

the

expanse

of his

temples;

that

is,

in

the

nineteenth-century

ontrast

of

ideal and

real,

Roderick

is

a

person

who

seeks

or

perceives

the

truth

beyond

merely

mundane

phenomena.10

oderick

comments

on his

"nervous

ffection,"

displaying tself"ina host of unnatural ensations" nd "amorbidacute-

ness of

the

senses,"

and

the narrator

peaks

of

Roderick's

"excitedand

highly

distempered

deality,"

uggesting

hat

Roderick's

heightened

and

painful

ensitivity

s his

mode of

contactwith

the noumenal

280).

Because

of his

peculiar

sensitivity,

Roderick

s

"un

uth

suspendu

Sitot

qu'on

e

touche l

resonne"

273).

The

Romantic

aeolian

harp,

Roderick

vibrates

o

all

motion

and

change,

the

whole

outward

universe." As

the

man

of

heightened

ensitivity,

Roderick

s

exquisitely

onnectedwith

matterand

decay.

21


6/13

As

Roderick s

aligned

with

the

ideal,

his twin

Madeline

s

asso-

ciated

with

the material nd

temporal-in

other

words,

the

real.Madeline

matches

her

brother's

pallor,

but her

special

mark is red-a faint blush

when she

is

interredand blood

on

her

garments

when she

emerges,

this

matched

by

the

blood-red

ight

of

the

emergent

ull moon

at

the moment

of the destructionof the House of Usher.As

female,

Madelineseems

to

represent

he counter

o

Roderick's imeless

abstraction,

lood

red

being

the

token of both life and

death.'2

She

impinges

on Roderick's ranscen-

dental

project,

hrough

his

very

mechanism

or contact

with

the

ideal,

his

heightenedsensitivity,

or he

is

tuned,

so to

speak,

especially

to

her,

the

twin with whom he'd

always

had

"sympathies

f a

scarcely

intelligible

nature"

289).

In

Roderick's

yric

aboutthe

palace

of

thought,

he abstract

and mathematical

harmony

of the ideal

kingdom

shifts

unaccountably

into madness,chaos, terror.Mightthe elusive cause be life itself, the

proximity

of the

"feminine"

rinciple

n

Madeline?

A similar

allegory

of Roderick's ate

can be found

in his

paintings,

which

gesture

towardsa transcendence

o be achieved

through

a move-

ment

downward

nto

pure

sensation,

which tself

gives way

to the extreme

and

objectless

feeling

of terror.

The

narrator

mphasizes

the

abstract,

non-representational

ualities

of Roderick's

paintings:"By

the

uttersim-

plicity,

by

the nakedness

of his

designs,

he arrested

and

overawed

atten-

tion.

If

ever mortal

painted

an

idea,

thatmortalwas RoderickUsher."The

narrators usingideaherein the Lockeanandeighteenth-centuryense,

that

s,

what is

given

n

perception

or

what is

present

n

consciousness,

ut

there

is

simultaneously

he

sense

of

the ideal

or

mystic,

that

is,

what

lies

behind

appearances

or

phenomena,

for Roderick's

"pure

abstractions"

produce

in

the narrator

"an

ntensity

of intolerable

awe,

no shadow of

which felt

I

ever

yet

in

the

contemplation

of the

certainly

glowing

yet

too

concrete

reveries

of Fuseli."

Thus the abstract

ensoryexperience

seems

to

lead

to the

verge

of

a

transcendent

eality,

as the ideal manifests

tself

n

the

idea

and threatens o overwhelm

the consciousness f the

perceiver.

Atthesametime,we can seeintheleastabstractof Roderick's aintingsa

representation

which

the

narrator annot

yet recognize,

for the

painting

which

presents

a subterranean vault

or

tunnel,"

presents

the

real,

the

tomb of Madeline.

Madeline

s

Roderick's

ast

genealogical

ink with

the

House,

with

the human

biological

condition.The

painting

n

its

"ghastly

and

inappropriate

plendour"

283)

suggests

Roderick's ear of

Madeline.

In the recesses

of

Roderick's

pirit

s a

fear

of

the

recess

which

the womb

and

tomb

of life.

We

might say

that Roderick

transcends

his

horror

of

Madeline

and the real not

by rising

above but

by living

through

t.

Roderickfeels himselfto be in a strugglefor survivaland fears

both Madeline

and

the

House,

which he sees as

molding

him

into

its

image.l3

As an artist

who

must

rely

on

his

heightened

sensitivity

o

reach

the

ideal,

Roderick

s

necessarily

connected

with

that real

world

(real,

however

strange)

which

he would

like to

transcend;

unlike the

artist-

percipient

of

Emerson's

Nature,

Roderick

cannot

simply

use and thus

subsume

nature o make

his own world.

In the

apocalyptic

end

of

the

tale,

Roderick

s

finally

overcome

by

the

natural

world

with which

Madeline

has been

aligned

and

is

brought

down

into

its

domain

of

inorganization,

22


7/13

figured

n

the

moment

in

which the

re-emergent

Madeline

alls

"heavily"

(296) upon

the

person

of her

brother,

and the House

of

Usher

also

splits

apart

and falls

together,

nto the

abyss,though

n

a

paradox

ypical

of

Poe,

Roderick's

destruction

may

also

be that

supreme

moment

of

transcen-

dence,

of

passing

from

the limited

self to the unlimited

whole, which

Roderickhas been

seeking.

Thus

the

intractable

materialsof

Roderick's

transcendental

roject,

ncluding

Madeline,

are

absolutelynecessary

o

its

fulfillment.

In

"Ligeia,"

Poe's favorite and most

frequently

revised

tale,

the

search

for

transcendental

ruth,

explicit

on

the

part

of

the

narrator,

s

renderedas

an

even

more

complex

abyssalprocess

than

s

the

simultane-

ous

rise

and

fall of

sentience

n

"Usher."

This tale

begins

not

only

in

the

aftermathof

extraordinary

xperience-experience

which

promises

to

revealtheoriginorgroundof life itself-but beginsindeedin thenarra-

tor's

orgetfulness

f

the

origin

of this

experience.

This

absence

gives

rise

to a

process

of

invocation

designed

to

restore

he

lost

origin.

The

structure

of

the

tale

is

thus

a

paradoxical

nfolding:

forward motion

is

always

motion

backward

o

that

origin

which

is

anticipated.

ThoughLigeia

was

everything

o the

narrator,

e

begins

his

tale,

"I

cannot,

or

my

soul,

remember

how,

when,

or

even

precisely

where,

I

first

became

acquainted

with

the

lady

Ligeia" (II, 248).

The

narrator

can

account

for

this

blank

in

memory only

by

the

gradualness

of

Ligeia's

influenceonhim,the work of slowtime,aninfluencematched-or really

reversed-by

the

decomposing

effects of

time

in

the

place

in

which

the

narrator hinks

he

met

this

spectral

woman-"some

large,

old,

decaying

city by

the Rhine."

Ligeia's

amily,

too,

the

narrator hinks

mustbe

"of a

remotely

ancient

date,"

n

other

words an

original

amily, yet

he

cannot

remember or

perhaps

never knew

her

family

name,

that markerof

her

identity

and

origin.'4

The

narrator as

ost all

sight

and

memory

of

origins.

By

rehearsing

is

forgetfulness

by

writing,

as

he

says),

the

narrator

begins

to

recollect

Ligeia.

He

indeed

re-calls

her,

for

she

re-emerges

throughthe music of her name: "it is by that sweet word alone-by

Ligeia-that

I

bring

before mine

eyes

in

fancy

the

image

of her who is

no

more"

249).

5 The

Ligeia

whose

image

is

called

up-the

living

Ligeia-is

a

decidedly spectral

presence,

an

"emaciated"woman

who

"came

and

departed

as a

shadow,"

whose

beauty

had

"the

radianceof

an

opium-

dream

...

wildly

divine"

(249).

The narrator's

work

of

calling

up

this

specter

involves

those

"studiesof

a nature

more than

all else

adapted

to

deaden

impressions

f

the

outward

world"

and

would seem to

replicate

the

circumstances

of

Ligeia's

earlier

presence,

as

the

narrator

ecalls,

"I

was nevermadeawareof herentrance ntomy closedstudysaveby the

dear

music

of

her low

sweet

voice,

as

she

placed

her

marble

hand

upon

my

shoulder"

249).

He has

returnedto

the

study

and to

those

studies

which

are

the

putative

scene

of

Ligeia's

nfluence.

The

attempt

to

recall

Ligeia

at

the

beginning

of

the

tale-the

work

of

recollection

which

does

not

quite

produce

origins-is

similar o the

narrator's

xperience

of

Ligeia,

who

led

him

to

the

very

verge

of

tran-

scendental truth.

Through

Ligeia's

mediation,

or

through

Ligeia

as

a

medium,

the

narrator did...

feel...

that

delicious

vista

by

slow

degrees

23


8/13

expanding

before

me,

down

whose

long,

gorgeous,

and

all

untrodden

path,

I

might

at

length

pass

onward

to

the

goal

of a wisdom

too

divinely

precious

not to be forbidden "

254) Again

n

the narrator's

ecollection

Ligeia

s

the medium-the

presence,

he

voice,

the

light-through

which

thenarratorsvirtually levatedto theapprehension f thetranscenden-

tal:

"Her

presence,

her

readings

alone,

rendered

vividly

luminousthe

many

mysteries

of the

transcendentalism

n

which we were

immersed.

Wanting

he radiant

ustreof her

eyes,

letters,

ambentand

golden,

grew

duller

than Saturnian

ead"

(254). Ligeia

is

a medium

in

an even more

powerful

sense

than

this,

for

the

narrator

eems to

apprehend

he

tran-

scendentalnot

merely hroughLigeia

but in

Ligeia:

"The

expression

f the

eyes

of

Ligeia

How

for

long

hours

have

I

pondered

upon

t ...

Whatwas

it-that

something

more

profound

than

the

well of

Democritus-which

lay farwithin thepupilsof my beloved?"He can go to thebrinkof this

well

but

not-yet-down:

"in

our

endeavors

o recall to

memory

some-

thing

long

forgotten,

we often find

ourselves

upon

the

very verge

of

remembrance,

without

being

able,

in

the

end,

to remember. And thus

how

frequently,

in

my

intense

scrutiny

of

Ligeia's

eyes,

have

I

felt

approaching

he

full

knowledge

of their

expression-felt

it

approaching

-yet

not

quite

be

mine-and

so

at

length

entirely

depart "

251-2)

Democritus

s

said to have

said

that truth

s in

the

depths.

What

s

that

something

more

profound

than the

deeper

truth

of

the

father

of

atomism?Thedeeptruth xpressednLigeia's yesisclearly ranscenden-

tal

truth,

here the

origin

and

ground

of

life

forms,

for

in

an

echo of

Emerson's

Nature,

the narrator

found,

n

the

commonest

objects

of the

universe,

a circle of

analogies

to

that

expression"

252).

The

narrator

associates

his

profound

omething

with

the

mysteries

nd

power

of

God's

will-again,

the

origin

and

ground

of

life-in

that non-existent

passage

from

Glanvill

cited

by

the narrator nd

by Ligeia

(and

finally,

by way

of

epigraph,by

Poe).16

What

is

structurally

nd

thematically ignificant

here is

that

the

narrator egins by meditatingon all thathe hasforgottenaboutLigeia's

origins,

hereby

recalling

and

recreating

his

experience

of

Ligeia,

whose

presence,

n

turn,

eems-or

seemed-to

offer

the narrator n

apprehen-

sion of

the

origin

or

ground

or

principle

of life. And the

narrator

quates

this near

apprehension

with not

quite

remembering,bringing

us back to

the

beginning

of

the

tale-in the

same sort of circularmotion which

characterizes

nd baffles

humanendeavor

n

Ligeia'spoem,

"The Con-

queror

Worm,"

which

in its turn

gestures

toward

a

God or

originating

force

which can

never

be

apprehended

on the level of

appearance.

Ligeiastrugglesoconquer heworm of death hroughheforceof

her

will;

with

her

"gigantic

volition"

he

mimes

that God

who is

"buta

great

will

pervading

all

things

by

nature

of

its

intentness"

253).

Therecan

be

only

one

God,

and

Ligeia

would seem

to be

a

usurpingdaughter

of

her

"DivineFather"

257).

But

the

struggle

or

ascendancy

could

as

well be

described

as

takingplace

between

Ligeia

and

the

narrator,

who in their

extreme

solation

comprise

a world unto themselves.

Each

struggles

or

complete knowledge

and

possession

of the other.

The

aspect

of

passion-

ate

antagonism

between

the two intellectual overs is marked

by

their

24


9/13

preoccupation

with the

strength

of the will

and

by

the narrator's

truggle

"to

fathom"and

"passion

o

discover"

he

meaning

expressed

n

Ligeia's

eyes.

The narrator

omes

closest

o

apprehending

nd

possessing

Ligeia

n

her

death:"But

n

death

only

was I

fully mpressed

with

the

strength

f

her

affection" 251-2,255).

Full

knowledge

of the otherwould mean a

divinization f the

self

and the

obliteration f

the

other,

yet

the isolatedself cannot

exist

without

that

other

in

which

and

against

which

to see itself. And so

the

narrator

s

distraught

fter

the

death

of

Ligeia

and descends

nto

that"mental

liena-

tion"which

matches he dramaof

Ligeia's

poem-"much

of

Madness

and

more of

Sin

/

And

Horror

he soul of the

plot"

(259,

257).

He

marries

he

Lady

Rowena

only,

it

would

seem,

to

intensify

his

longing

for

Ligeia.

Now

the

maddened narrator

plays

God,

so to

speak,

and

arranges

he

horriddramaof Rowena'sartificially nimatedsurroundings.Rowena's

name,

as

ClaudeRichard

points

out,

means what is

left over.17 he

is

the

matter

hrough

which the

struggle

between

Ligeia

and

the narrator

an

be

replayed.

As

thenarrator

ormentshis

second

bride,

he

"call[s]

aloud

upon

[Ligeia's]

name"

n

an

effort to

"restore" er

(261).

To the

narrator,

he

artificial

animation

of

the bridal

chamber,

really

a

torture

chamber,

begins

to

seem

like real

animation,

s

he

senses

something

oming

(back)

to

life.

This is

of

course

Ligeia

as

figured

finally

n

"the

eyes

of

the

figure

which

stood

before me"

(268).

Ligeia'snfluenceon thenarrator'smetaphysicalnvestigationsad

not

been

a

new

conception

but,

as the

narrator

ays,

a new

"sentiment,"

new

feeling,

aroused

nitially

by

the

expression

of

her

eyes

(252).

Feeling

takes

over

the

traditional

unctionof

reasonor

spirit,

and the

movement

downward

nto

sensation

ecomes

the

ground

of

transcendence,

ground

which

itself

will

crack

to

expose

a

lower

depth.

In

his

awakenedsensitiv-

ity,

the

narrator s

finally

full

impressed

with

the

expression

of

Ligeia's

eyes,

that

force

which,

he

imagines,

ies behind all

material

appearances,

and

so all

else but

the

expression

falls

away,

as

the

narrator

himself

is

overcomewithterror.Themomentof transcendencesagain iguredasa

downward

motion,

the descent

into

the

bottomless

well,

into

the

pit

of

unconsciousness.

The

narrator

f

"Ligeia,"

arrating

nd

recasting

his

past,

would

seem

to

live

in

pulsations

of

recollection,

collapse,

and

recollection-

much

ike

the

pulsating

universe

Poe

would

later

describe

n

Eureka.

The

narrator

recalls

Ligeia's

eyes

as

the

origin

of his

experience,

just

as

he

regards

them

as

the

key

to

the

origin

of

life

forms,

yet

his

experience

properly

has

no

origin

and can

only

be

repeated.

Might

we

say,

then,

that

in "Ligeia" he projectedrepetitionof the transcendent xperienceof

collapse

is a

mirrorof

the

origin

which

vanishes?

I

would

like

to

conclude

by

shifting

slightly

my

perspective

on

transcendence

n

"Ligeia."

Ligeia's

commentary

on

the

search

for

tran-

scendental

truth

s

her

poem

about

"the

tragedy

'Man."'

Curiously,

he

most

prominent

features of

this

drama of

aspiration

and

failure

are

mimicry

and

mechanical

ontrivance.

God

is

represented

by

mimes,

and

humans

are

"Mere

puppets,"

but

power

itself is

"formless,"

invisible,"

ungraspable

256-7).

25


10/13

In

the

first

movement

of the

narrative,

Ligeia's

presence

and the

creative

power

of

her voice

produce

an

alchemical

transformation,

turn-

ing

lead

or

dead letters

"lambent

and

golden"

(254).

Still,

Ligeia

seems

to

fail

at

miming

God,

and when

the focus

of

the

narrative

shifts

from

Ligeia's power

to the

narrator's,mimicry

and

mechanical contrivance

become

prominent again,

as the

narratoruses Rowena to

recall

Ligeia.

He

exchanges

his

gold

for

Rowena,

and

his

manipulations-to

terrorize

his

second

bride and to

bring

back

Ligeia's spirit

through

the

deadened

or

leaden

body

of

Rowena-are

highly

mechanical.

Despite

the

pentagonal

room,

traditionally

the

space

of

magic,

and

many

hints

of ancient occult

arts,

the

setting

seems to

be mere

machinery,

as

in

that "contrivance"

which makes

the

simple

arabesque

figures

into "an

endless succession

of

the

ghastly

forms which

belong

to

the

superstition

of

the

Norman,

or arise

in the guilty slumbers of the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly

heightened

by

the

artificial

introduction of a

strong

continual

current

of

wind

behind

the

draperies-giving

a hideous and

uneasy

animation to the

whole"

(260-1).

This

machinery

for

producing

effects

is

equivalent

to

literary parody

(the

letter

without

the

spirit)

and

suggests

how

thin

the line

was for Poe

between,

on the one

hand,

the search for transcendental

truth

(the mystic,

the

ideal,

in

the terms of the

Drake-Halleck

review)

and on

the

other

hand,

a

contrivance,

a

game,

a

joke,

a

parody,

even

a

self-

parody.

And even

"Ligeia,"

the

author's

favorite

among

his works and a

tale whose occult significance Poe endorsed, was not spared mechanical

conversion,

for it is

thoroughly

parodied

in

Poe's

story

"The Man

That

Was

Used

Up."18

San Francisco State

University

NOTES

1.

Though

Newton came close to

eliminating

occult force from the scientific

model

in his

proposition

that

first causes cannot

be

known-"hypotheses

non

fingo"-his

descriptions

of

gravity

and of

ether

parallel

the occult

forces of

scholasticism,

and

throughout

the

eighteenth

century

the line

between

occult force

and

demystified

natural

philosophy

was

quite

fine

indeed,

for

educated

lay persons

as well

as for scientists.

Further,

Newton's

optics,

which

pictured

nature

as

a

system

of

transmutations,

esisted

a

thoroughly

mechanistic

nterpretation.

2. This view of

Edwards,

enshrined

n

modern

scholarship

by Perry

Miller's

Jonathan

Edwards

(New York,1949),

has been

significantly

altered

by

the

recent

work

of Norman

Fiering, especially

Jonathan

Edwards's

Moral

Thought

and Its British

Context

(Chapel

Hill:

University

of North

Carolina

Press,

1981);

see also

Fiering,

Moral

Philosophy

at

Seventeenth-Century

Harvard:

A

Discipline

in Transition

(Chapel

Hill:

University

of

North

Carolina

Press,

1981);

David

Laurence,

"Jonathan

Edwards,

John

Locke,

and

the Canon

of

Experience,"

Early

American

Literature,

15

(1980),

107-

23;

Laurence,

"Moral

Philosophy

and New

England

History:

Reflections

on

Norman

Fiering,"

Early

American

Literature,

18

(1983),

187-214.

Though

Miller's

nalysis

of Edwards's

heology

may

be

seriously

n

error,

t

remains

26


11/13

important

or

intellectual

history

and

literary

history

o

note that

Edwards's

successors

did indeed associate

him with

the

new

psychology.

3. See

James

E.

Cronin,

Introduction,

The

Diary of

Elihu Hubbard

Smith

(1771-1798),

ed. Cronin

(Philadelphia:

American

Philosophical

Society,

1973).

4. Forasamplingof this iterature, ee TheTranscendentalists:nAnthology,

ed.

Perry

Miller

Cambridge:

Harvard

University

Press,

1950).

The

reaction

against

Locke

was

sharpestamong

the

Transcendentalists,

who

objected

to

the

atomism,

materialism,

nd

mere

reasonableness

f

Lockean

empiricism;

their

search for

spiritual

renewal

was

expressed

in

terms of

connection,

process, development,

and

was

sustained

by

a set

of

conceptions

which had

coexisted

with

empiricism

in

complex

ways throughout

the

Enlighten-

ment-ideas of

organicism,

reformulations f

notions

of

the connectionof

microcosm and

macrocosm,

a

modernized

hermetic notion of the

divine

mind

radiating

hroughout

reation,

and a

conception

of

occult

force

under-

lyingthe empiricalsurfaceof things.

5.

Nature,

n

Selections

rom Ralph

Waldo

Emerson,

ed.

Stephen

E.

Whicher

(Boston:

Houghton

Mifflin

Company, 1960),

p.

22.

6.

In

The Tower

and

the

Abyss:

An

Inquiry

nto

the

Transformation

f

Man

(1957;

rpt.

New

York:

Viking

Press,

1967),

Erich

Kahlertraces

the

new

emphasis

on

perceptual experience

in

French

Romanticism

and

Symbol-

ism,

leading

to what

he

also

terms a

transcendence

downward;

his

devel-

opment

culminates,

Kahler

eloquently

argues,

n

Sartre'sLa

Nausee,

with

the

"decomposition

of

the

substance of our

phenomenal

world"

(p.

176).

(Onemight

add to

Kahler's

iteraryhistory

he

singular mportance

of

Poe

to

several

of

the

French

Romantics

and

Symbolists.)

See also

David

H.

Hirsch's fine

essay,

"The Pit

and the

Apocalypse,"

Sewanee

Review,

76

(1968),

632-52.

7.

"The Fall of

the

House of

Usher," n

The

Complete

Works

of

Edgar

Allan

Poe,

ed.

James

A.

Harrison,

17

vols.

(New

York:

Thomas

Y.

Crowell &

Company,

1902),

III,

273.

8.

Works,VIII,

275-318.

9.

On

Poe's uses

of

alchemy,

see

Jean

Ricardou,

"L'Or

du

scarabee,"

Pourune

theorie du

Nouveau Roman

(Paris:

Editions du

Seuil,

1971),

pp.

40-58;

BartonLeviSt.Armand,"Poe's SoberMystification':TheUses of Alchemy

in

'The

Gold-Bug,"'

Poe

Studies,

4

(1971),

1-7;

St.

Armand,

"Usher

Unveiled: Poe

and

the

Metaphysic

of

Gnosticism,"

Poe

Studies,

5

(1972),

1-8;

Claude

Richard,

"'L'

ou

l'indicibilite

de

Dieu:

une

lecture

de

'Ligeia,"'

Delta,

12

(1981),

11-34.

Poe's

knowledge

of

alchemy

came

from

a numberof

sources-encyclopedias,

journals,

nd

such

popular

worksas

IsaacD'Israe-

li's

Curiosities

of

Literature

with

a note

on

"alchymy"

n

vol.

I)

and God-

win's

St.

Leon,

a

moralized

novel

about a

man who

learns

he

secret

of

the

magnum

opus,

the

transmutation

f

metalsand

the

elixir

vitae.

(These

atter

two

works Poe

mentions n his

journalism.)

also think

Poe

was

acquainted

with the seriousliteratureof hermeticism:among the recherchebooks in

Roderick's

library

is

"the

Chiromancy

of

Robert

Flud

[sic]" (287);

the

seventeenth-century

Fludd was

best

known for

his

work

on

alchemy.

Hawthorne's

and

Melville's

descriptions

of the

mystic

symbol

also

draw on

the

imagery

of

alchemy

and

may

indeed

owe

something

to

the

work

of

their

confrere in

the

house

of

letters,

the late

Edgar

Poe.

The

narratorof

The

Scarlet

Letter

describes his

reaction to

finding

the

rag

or

remnantof

the

scarlet

etter with

its

traces of

gold

embroidery:

"Certainly,

there

was

some

deep

meaning

in

it,

most

worthy

of

interpretation,

and

which,

as

it

were,

streamed

orth

from

the

mystic symbol,

subtly

communi-

27


12/13

eating

itself

to

my

sensibilities,

but

evading

the

analysis

of

my

mind"

"The

Custom-House").

Hester

has

worked

gold

into

the

dross,

the

cloth,

trans-

forming

the

original

etter

through

his act of

self-expression,

as she trans-

forms

it

through

her

living.

Her

example

of

the

feminine

art

parallels

the

more

obviously

occult

practices

of

the learned

Roger

Chillingworth;

hough

Chillingworthuses hisknowledgeto tormentDimmesdale,hisstudieswere

aimed

at

healing,

as he

says

to

Hester,

"My

old

studies n

alchemy...

and

my

sojourn,

for

above

a

year

past,

among

a

people

well

versed

in

the

kindly

properties

of

simples,

have

made a

better

physician

of

me than

many

who

claim the

medical

degree" (Chapt.

4).

In

giving

expression

to

the mere

remnantor letter of

the

story

by

looking

into the interior

of

hearts,

Haw-

thorne

combines the

expressive

art of

Hester

with

the

sympathetic

art

of

Chillingworth;

e becomes the

artistwhose letters ive.

As

the narrator

ays

of

himself,

the failed

artist

n

the house of

custom,

if

he

could

look

through

the common

life to

its

"deeper

import"

he would find "the letters

turnto

gold

upon

the

page"

("The

Custom-House").

The

"mysticsign"

of

Moby-

Dick

is

the famous

whiteness

of

the

whale,

the terrorof

which,

Ishmael

ays,

would

be

apprehended

by

the

man of

"untutored

deality"

Chapt.

42);

this

whiteness

is

associated

with that other

sign

and

talisman

of

the white

whale-the

gold

doubloon.

10.

For

a more

conventional

rendering

of

the contrast

of

real

and

ideal,

a

contrast

which runs

hrough

nineteenth-century

merican

iterature,

ee

the

description

of

Augustine

St. Clare's

ife and character

n

Chapt.

5 of

Uncle

Tom's

Cabin.

My

discussion

of realand ideal

draws

on

my

note on

"Usher,"

TheExplicator(forthcoming).

11.

A

precedent

for the

Romantic

mage

of the aeolian

harp

might

be the

view

of

the

Cambridge

philosopher

Henry

More

that

space

is the sensorium

of

God,

which influenced

Newton and

others.

12.

In "The

Masque

of

the

Red

Death,"

he

masked

figure

of the Red Death

has

a similar

role,

bringing

time back

to consciousness

to

obliterate Prince

Prospero's

atemporal

phantasm.

13. This

struggle

is

limned

by

Roderick's

terrific

apprehensions

and

by

his

summoning

he

narrator-metaphorically

or

literally

o

break

the

connec-

tion Roderickhas to Madeline

and the House.

It

is also

figured

forth

by

the

transferof luminosity rom Roderick o Madelineand theHouse,for when

the luminousness

of

Roderick's

eyes-the light

or

fire

of life-is extin-

guished,

this

force

intensifies

n

Madeline

and

in

the

House,

until the life

force,

except

in

the

narrator,

s

spent.

14. The

nineteenth-century

anguage

of race

suggests

hat

Ligeia,

who is

"not

of

our

own race"

(251),

is of

the "race"

f

the

Jews

and hence

genuinely

from

the most ancient

amily.

That

Ligeia,

with dark

hairand

eyes,

is

paired

with

the fair-and

English-Lady

Rowena of course

recallsScot'srivalheroines

in

Ivanhoe,

the

Jewish

Rebecca

and

the

Saxon

Rowena,

a further

hint of

Ligeia's

oreign

and ancient

ineage.

15. Poe had alreadyin "AlAaraaf"given the name Ligeiato the personified

spirit

of

music,

recallingperhaps

the siren

Ligea

in

Milton'sComus.

16.

Though

no

scholar

has found

Glanvill's

tatement

about

the

power

of

the

will,

in

"Descent

nto the

Maelstrom" oe

paraphrases

he

following

related

passage

from

Glanvill's

Essays

on Several

mportant

Subjects

n

Philosophy

and

Religion (1676):

"The

ways

of

God

in

Nature

(as

in

Providence)

are

not

as ours

are:

Nor arethe

Modelsthat

we

frame

any

way

commensurate

o the

vastness

and

profundity

of

his

works;

which

have

a

depth

in

them

greater

than the

Well

of

Democritus."

17.

Richard,

"'L'

ou

l'indicibilitede Dieu."

28


13/13

18. The Letters

of Edgar

Allan

Poe,

ed.

John

Ward

Ostrom,

2

vols.,

2nd

ed.

(New

York:

Gordian

Press,Inc.,

1966),

I, 117-9;

oi

Poe's

parodying

"Ligeia"

see G.

R.

Thompson,

Poe's Fiction: Romantic

Irony

in the Gothic

Tales

(Madison:

University

of Wisconsin

Press,

1973),

pp.

83-5,

Evan

Carton,

The

Rhetoric

of

American

Romance:Dialectic

and

Identity

n

Emerson,

Dickin-

son, Poe,andHawthorne Baltimore:TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress,

1985),

pp.

144-5.

I

am

grateful

to

William

H.

Marks

II for

his criticism

of

a

draft

of

this

essay.

AAS/NEMLA

Fellowship

The

American

Antiquarian

Society

and

NEMLA

offer a

short-term

fellowship

limited

to

research in

American

literary

studies

through

1876.

The

winner of

the

AAS/NEMLA fellowship for 1988 is Shirley Samuels,

an

assistant

professor

of

English

at

Cornell

University.

Her

research

project

is

entitled

"Politics

and

the

Family

in

the

Early

Republic."

Profes-

sor

Samuels

holds

the

AB,

MA,

and PhD

degrees

from

the

University

of

California,

Berkeley.

For her

project,

part

of

a

book-in-progress,

she will

make

use of

the

facilities of

the AAS

during

the

term

of her

fellowship,

September-November,

1988.

NEMLA

members

interested

in

this fellow-

ship

should

write for

information

to

the

American

Antiquarian

Society,

185

Salisbury

Street,

Worcester,

MA.

01609.

29

Documents

Transcendence Downward an Essay on Usher and Ligeia