Poe wrote often of obsessive love that survives the loved one's death. His famous poem "The Raven" (1845) has as its speaker a man who pines over the lost Lenore so obsessively that he turns the chance visit of the raven into an exercise in grief. The bird "croaks" a noise that sounds like the word "nevermore." So the speaker asks the bird if his grief will abate and gets the predictable reply. The very questions he chooses show that he will not allow himself to end his sorrow.

In the story "The Oblong Box," the main character secretly transports his wife's coffin, with her corpse inside, in his room during a voyage. When the ship sinks, he lashes himself to the box and submerges with it rather than separate himself from his beloved. Poe presents grieving as a full time, debilitating, and dangerous occupation.

"Ligeia" is...