In “Legeia,” Edgar Alan Poe gave readers a story about life, death, and rebirth that has reigned for over a century with literary audiences. His narrator tells the story of his first wife, Legeia’s, possible rebirth into the body of his second wife. Reincarnation is the transfer after death of one soul into another’s body. Several factors throughout the story allude to the fact that Legeia’s soul may be very old. Poe laced evidence of Legeia’s persistent rebirth from beginning to end in this story including her lack of identity, her extensive knowledge, symbolism referring to her reincarnation, as well as her poem about human life.
The first evidence introduced by Poe that Legeia is the product of reincarnation is her lack of a firm identity. Poe’s narrator is unable to recall being informed about her family. He states, “Of her family-I have surely heard her speak” (393). Poe insinuates that perhaps she does not have a family due to the
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The narrator claims, “In the classical tongues was she deeply proficient” (396). This statement appears to give additional evidence to Legeia’s reincarnation. Legeia is adept in these ancient languages because she lived during the times when these languages were commonly spoken. Furthermore, she exhibited complete knowledge in “all the wide areas of moral, physical and mathematical science” (396). Poe implied that this knowledge could not be attained in one lifetime. His narrator claims that there is no man or woman that he knows of in the world that is as knowledgeable as Legeia (396). Poe also writes, “that the acquisitions of Legeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy” (396). He used the words “infinite supremacy” to mean limitless knowledge over everyone else. Poe used all of this evidence to reiterate the theme of reincarnation in his