Ligeia is Poe's short-story that I recall the most. When I first started reading it - and because I am not fond of many literary works concerning the afterlife and reincarnation, and phantasmal experiences - my hopes were inadequately low but after starting to dig deeply into it, I realised the paranormality in this short-story works as a wide metaphor for the author's feelings and wishes.
You see, usually when a topic like this comes around in a book, it seems as if the book is meant to aim at a different, more juvenile, "audience". Yet, there are works astounding enough to trespass this frontier. This is one of them.
This is a short-story that illustrates the feeling of missing someone - Lady Ligeia, in this case - in a much darker prespective, yet still, and even if the reader has never felt something of the like, it establishes a solid relationship in between the author and you, achieved through the profoundess of the words used and the actions evoked, as if you feel what the author's feelings at the moment.
The death and consequent reincarnation of Lady Ligeia is easily associated with the narrator's wish of having her back, the one he loves unconditionally.
