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Poe's Ligeia: The Platypus Reads Part CCCIII

As a fitting follow-up to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I decided to doodle my way through a bit of Edgar Allen Poe. I've asked my students to do the same as a way of interacting with the text, moving from consumers to creators. It's an honorable tradition. After all, it's hard not to see Lovecraft's debt to Poe when reading The Fall of the House of Usher and comparing it to The Rats in the Walls, or Ligeia and The Thing on the Doorstep. Lovecraft binge-read Poe as a child and then turned his own hand to creating.

So here we have the mysterious Lady Ligeia with her impossible to place features and flair for consumptive look (hint: consumption was linked with vampirism in the backwoods of 18th century New England). Next, we have the opium inspired bedroom/ritual chamber where Ligeia makes her final grand entrance. I wasn't sure how that last one would look on paper, but Poe's aesthetic is unfailingly creepy whether in words or colored pencil.

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