# Levana — Suspiria de Profundis character guide

> Levana in Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas De Quincey.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0017-levana-and-our-ladies-of-sorrow

## Snapshot

The Roman goddess who lifts the newborn from the ground and, in the narrator's Oxford dreams, presides over the severe education of grief.

## Who they are

She appears to the narrator in dreams, known by her Roman symbols, a veiled power who raises infants erect and watches over human development through passion, strife, and temptation rather than spelling-books. Her distinctive tension is that this goddess of ennobling kindness works chiefly through sorrow, reverencing grief as her deepest ministry. She matters because she reframes the narrator's childhood afflictions not as accidents but as a curriculum, giving the book its central claim that suffering educates the soul.

## In the story

### [Suspiria de Profundis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/chapters/suspiria-de-profundis)

The Roman goddess of childbirth and sorrow, personified as a figure who presides over the afflictions of childhood.

### [Memorial Suspiria](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/chapters/memorial-suspiria)

Not directly present, but the mother's dying letter and maternal counsel echo Levana's protective, sorrowful role.

### [Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/chapters/levana-and-our-ladies-of-sorrow)

Roman goddess who lifts newborns upright, symbolizing ennobling kindness and education through life's central forces; communes with the Sorrows.

### [Savannah-La-Mar](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/chapters/savannah-la-mar)

The Dark Interpreter, who accompanies the narrator in the dream and delivers a philosophical discourse on time, grief, and God's agriculture.

### [The Daughter of Lebanon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/chapters/the-daughter-of-lebanon)

Not directly present, but the theme of sorrow and divine intervention echoes Levana's domain.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/characters/levana
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspiria_de_profundis_se/characters