Poe and Hawthorne as Women’s Amanuenses

Abstract

Hester Prynne is the great nemesis of woman. She is the KNOWING Ligeia risen diabolic from the grave. . . . And with Hester, after Ligeia, woman becomes a nemesis to man. . . . . . .The woman herself may be as nice as milk, to all appearance, like Ligeia. But she is sending out waves of silent destruction of the faltering spirit in men, all the same. She doesn’t know it. She can’t even help it. But she does it. The devil is in her. D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Clarsic Am‘can Literatun