FANTASMAGORIA E PINTURAS POÉTICAS EM “LIGEIA”, DE EDGAR ALLAN POE

Abstract

This article analyzes the way in which Edgar Allan Poe creates poetic paintings
in his Gothic short story “Ligeia” to produce the effect or the force of impression of the
story. The narrative develops issues dear to 19th-century aesthetics, such as the creative
power of imagination, the Gothic setting, and the grotesque. It unfolds as metapoetic
reflections based on descriptions of objects and characters that are at once beautiful and
lugubrious. The article explores the theory of ekphrasis, its use in the aforementioned tale,
Poe’s appropriation of 18th-century German aesthetic discussions, especially the
principles of Lessing’s work Laocoon, or on the Frontiers of Painting and Poetry and
Friedrich Schiller’s theory of the sublime.