ABSTRACT
Wherever we begin reading Poe’s stories, they hold our interest because we want both to complete their formulaic plots and to partake in the emotion served up by their troubled narrators. An important vehicle for understanding the narrative strategy of the tales is the unreliable narration of “Ligeia” (1838), “William Wilson” (1839), and “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846). “Philosophy,” Poe’s most comprehensive work of criticism, claims to explain both the writing and the workings of his most popular poem, “The Raven” (1845). However, the mourning of a lost love by the poem’s narrator-protagonist merges with the poem’s quotation in “Philosophy” to dominate the essay with its emotional power.1 “William Wilson” will be treated for its insistence on the indeterminacy of narrative, while “Ligeia” will speak to unreliable narration.2
