...Unit 2, Activity 7 Hannah Wylie The poem “A Dream Within A Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe is one of the many pieces that this poet has written. The mysterious poem has a profound theme in order to explain how a dream can cause hope, but can also cause a lot of sorrow. It is extraordinary due to the strong examples of imagery, symbolism, and sound devices such as rhyme, repetition, and alliteration that it contains. The main theme of this famous poem is all about a dream. It implies that a dream can cause hope, but also sorrow. It shows that you could be living something that feels like a dream, but it could slowly take a turn for the worse and no longer bring you the same happiness that it once did. Due to the fact that Edgar lost his wife, he may have implied through this piece, that something that brings you so much happiness can slip away so quickly, like, “Grains of the golden sand” (Poe 15). An image is a picture that readers visualize, and it appeals to the five senses in order to create an emotional reaction. An example of imagery in this poem is when Poe says “In a night, or in a day” (Poe 7). This is because, night and day, make people visualize light vs. dark and portrays daydreaming, and dreaming while sleeping. This develops a twisting atmosphere, leads to contrast imagery, and helps create feelings of controversy. Another device used in this poem is symbolism. Symbolism is “the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities” (Oxford Dictionaries) meaning...
Words: 612 - Pages: 3
...Edgar Allan Poe, whose father abandoned the family and whose mother died of tuberculosis shortly after, final expiration came on a Baltimore hospital bed the evening of the 7th October in 1849. Poe had a myriad life struggles, and in A Dream Within a Dream, which questions reality and was one of his poems written in youth and, first published in the Flag of Our Union (Poe 89), his general distress is clear. Born Edgar Poe on the 19th of January 1809 and orphaned two years later, he was adopted by John & Frances Allan, whereby he received his middle name (Frank 18). “There is no doubt that Poe was a difficult child” (Krutch 25), but with such a tragic beginning to life, how could he be expected to act as if nothing was on his mind? During his adolescence, he wrote many poems that went unpublished. Poe notes in his prefix to Poems Written in Youth, “Private reasons – some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism… have induced me… to re-publish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood” (Poe 88). Though categorized as one of his ‘boyhood’ poems, A Dream within a Dream, did not make it into this collection, and it “was first published [after Poe’s death] in the March 31, 1849 edition of a Boston-based periodical called Flag of Our Union“ (Sova 73). The poem begins with three rhyming lines, where Poe bids farewell to someone dear, kissing them upon their brow and then stating, “You are not wrong, to deem / That my days have been a dream ” (Poe 89). Poe’s...
Words: 1158 - Pages: 5
...A Dream within a Dream Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream within a Dream (1), written in 1849 (2), is one of the most powerful English language poems of the 19th century. The power of Poe’s poem stems from its masterful use of rhyme, compactness and simplicity. It’s divided neatly into 2 stanzas, like bookends of a hallucination, the first one 11 lines, and the 2nd 13 lines. In the first stanza, the Poe wastes no time thrusting the reader immediately into his dream. As if sleepwalking, the reader is being kissed. This powerful technique places the reader as the subject of a romantic fiction. The universal condition of love, loss, and sorrow of separation are introduced in a mere 2 lines. As in many of Poe’s poems, this a tone poem, with the message reinforced by a plaintive repetitive melody. The ending of the first 3 lines: brow, now, avow, all sound in a soft minor key, setting a rhythm and pattern that strengthens the poem by setting the stage of meter and rhyming inevitability. The sounds are familiar and the reader knows they will repeat. The inevitability that is set up by the rhyming sequence is also a key theme of the poem. Poe tries to find some comfort in the pain of separation. He asks the reader, if hope is abandoned, does it even matter if life is only a dream? Is what we experience in his dream or in life insignificant? The second stanza takes the reader from the universal human experience of loss, to the microscopic examination of the smallest particles...
Words: 493 - Pages: 2
...07/08/15 Poetry essay ENG4U-42 A Dream within a Dream By Edgar Allen Poe Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow-- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand-- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep--while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? Analysis My initial glance through this poem I realise that the poet is not really talking about a dream. He compares life metaphorically to a dream within a dream. The structure of this poem is not a standard rhyming pattern which halts the reader in order to absorb what is being said. The poem consists of nine couplets and two triplets. The opening stanza, for example, begins with a triplet, then shifts to couplets and the second stanza shifts from couplets to triplet in the middle then shifts back to the original pattern. The poem expresses the poet’s frustration of the uncertainty and temporariness of life and people. He compares life and dreams because when we dream, it seems so real but when we are awakened by the roar of life...
Words: 1001 - Pages: 5
...Summary and Analysis of Selected poems by: Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe: An American poet, short story writer, critic and editor he was best known for “The Raven”, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell Tale Heart”. Edgar Allan Poe was given the nickname “Father of the Detective Story” due to his distinctive writing form. The tone, imagery and language in “Alone” and “A Dream within a Dream” allows Edgar Allan Poe to create poems based on his dark, disturbing and dysfunctional upbringing. Edgar was born January 19, 1809, he was the middle child. Edgar parents died when he was three, and he moved in with a successful business man, John. John wanted Edgar to follow in his footsteps, but Edgar mind was set on becoming a writer. Edgar attended University of Virginia at 17 where he made good grades. Edgar dropped out of college and at 18 he published his first book Tamerlane (1827). Edgar enlisted in the United States Army and was accepted into West Point Academy. With the help from John, Edgar was expelled after being in the Academy for eight months. Edgar published another book around the time he was expelled. He began publishing some of his short stories which he was offered an editorial position at Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. Edgar at 27 married Virginia who was only 14 and enjoyed the time he shared with his wife, but he was unhappy with the pay at Southern Literary Messenger. He moved to New York during the time of Panic of...
Words: 720 - Pages: 3
...Edgar Allen Poe was obsessed with cats and often wrote with a cat on his shoulder. One of his quotes where “I wish i could write as mysterious as a cat”(BrainyQuote.com). Poe was in the army and was a sergeant major until he was discharged. In 1848 after his wife’s death in 1847, Poe attempted to commit suicide by ingesting opiates. Due to the horrific experiences in his life had a lot to do with his writing style. Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts, January 19,1809 (Poets.org).Poe had a father and a mother who were both famous actors who died when Poe was three years old. As Poe got older he attended the University of Virginia (Poets.org).Soon after he was forced to leave because he was in gambling debt and John...
Words: 569 - Pages: 3
...I chose the poem, “A Dream Within a Dream” by Edgar Allen Poe because it is about the questioning of what exactly classifies reality and fantasy. Dreams can fade away, and this poem gives imagery of watching those dreams disappear. In the first two lines, Poe says, “Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now.” So he is saying goodbye to those dreams. The rest of the first stanza could possibly be referring to saying goodbye to one’s true love. The narrator feels that “his days have been a dream,” and “hope has flown away.” So this true love could have meant everything to him, and now since this lover is gone, so have any dreams the narrator once had for his future. In the second stanza of “A Dream Within a Dream,” the narrator is now standing on a beach attempting to grasp a handful of sand, however, only a few grains of the golden sand remain in his palm. Most of the grains of sand slipped away from his palm, just like his lover did. “How they creep, through my fingers to the deep, while I weep.” The narrator knows that everything he once thought was obtainable in his life is now inaccessible to him. The narrator also feels hopeless; he is wishing and begging to take grasp of the sand, which represents broken dreams. He wants to be able to fulfill his dreams, but he cannot. This poem is an example of deferred dreams, and could also relate to death, or departure after having been with someone for a long period of time. The first stanza represents departing...
Words: 306 - Pages: 2
...The Mysterious Mr. Poe ” All that we see or seem, Is but a dream within a dream” (http://quotations.about.com/cs/morepeople/a/bls_edgar_allen.htm), this quote is one of many Poe’s famous sayings. He was known as the inventor of the modern detective story and innovator of the science fiction genre. Although, many people know him because of his tales of horror as well as his haunting lyric poetry there is a whole other side to him other than a morbid, mysterious creature lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries. His childhood was very tragic and his adult life full of sorrow. This death though, was something to for everyone to think about. Poe, I believe is one of the most unique characters in the literary world. Edgar Poe (his original name), was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston. Within three years of his birth, both of Poe’s parents had died. His two siblings, Henry and Rosalie, moved away to live with other families. Poe, however, went to live with a wealthy tobacco merchant, Mr. John Allan, (hence, acquiring the middle name Allan). Poe had always dreamed since his childhood to be a writer, but, Mr. Allan wanted him to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman. Because of Poe’s immense interest in poetry, by the time he was thirteen, he had acquired enough poetry to make a book. In 1826, Poe left for the University of Virginia. While excelling in his classes he had also accumulated a considerable amount of debt. Because of Poe’s debt, he had taken up to gambling to...
Words: 899 - Pages: 4
...Poetry, prose, sonnets, drama, plays, short stories and novels are concepts that first came to my mind when I think in the question “What is literature?” The definition of literature has change over time. The only thing that is certain about the meaning of literature is that the definition will change. The concepts about what is literature about also change over time. In order to get a clear understanding of exactly what literature is, first we need to know its definition. According to the Merriam-Webster, literature is defined by “the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age; the body of writings on a particular subject: printed matter.” Literature has to do with letters, but some people often think that literature is only one thing, not knowing that it is composed by several elements that we use every day. These important elements include poems, prose, sonnets, drama, plays, short stories and novels. Poetry is created from the soul. It comes from your emotions and it needs every piece of creativity inside you. It has been called the art of “saying the unsayable” because trough this you can express your feelings with no limit, and nobody can tell you that is wrong. If you make a poem and you think it is not good enough, well it is no good. You as the author or the reader, can only judge if it is good or but for you but maybe for some one else it is the opposite as it is for you. A good place to start when looking back at how poetry...
Words: 4267 - Pages: 18
...Community College Edgar Allan Poe: Recurring Theme By Eric Torres Professor J. Carlacio ENG 201 - 071 14 March 2014 Edgar Allan Poe: Recurring Theme Edgar Allan Poe was an inimitable poet in the world of literature. Due to intensely traumatic events that occurred in his personal life, his anxiety led to a strong emphasis on a recurring theme of death particularly a woman not only within his poems. Although the death of a woman was common amongst his work, Poe in fact held women in high regard. There were a number of women present in his life that nurtured and comforted him, but the few he chose to acknowledge and genuinely care for coincidentally would die which was a major part why Poe often went through severe episodes of depression. Poe’s depression led him to a dark emotional state and caused a constant playback of death within his mind. Mourning many years in his life his love for women and experience with death combined to form a curiosity for the unknown and he transitioned this madness into his work. Poe was deeply in love with his wife Virginia. They married each other in the year 1836. She had passed in result of what was then known as consumption to what is now known as Tuberculosis in the year 1847. Within the course of those eleven years Virginia’s presence in his life played an important role in shaping his literary work. From the first time they had met to even after her death, she inspired Poe indefinitely. In Annabel Lee Poe in a first person point of...
Words: 2000 - Pages: 8
...emotionally distant from others. In the poem “Alone”, Edgar Allan Poe most directly relates alone with being emotionally distant and describes alone in terms of not being able to experiences things as others do, most significantly during his childhood. Poe looks back upon his childhood, and with his dark and disturbing writing style he creates the image of fear and loneliness that he felt as a child within the reader. Poe establishes in “Alone” that the true definition of alone is to be emotionally distant from the world. This idea comes from his childhood influences, his search for the unexplainable and his philosophy...
Words: 1722 - Pages: 7
...Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe Setting * Abbey is placed in a wildest an unsocial region (abbey is a medieval term) * Big building, gloomy and dreary, almost savaged aspect. Huge windows in the building. Lofty rooms – high ceilings. Describes a window in a gothic way – tinted, ghastly lustre on the objects within the room. * Foreign elements: Eastern culture, arabesque, Egypt, * Draped in fabric and tapestries, gold and jetty black * The room is shaped as a pentagon in a high turret in each corner is a sarcophagus (a coffin) * Heavy materials: ebony, oak, granite * High turret gothic binaries. Semantic scheme to describe the room: * Heavy, dark, dramatic, large, draped, The rooms symbolic meaning: * Narrators psyche * Death and isolation * Cathedral tomb. The bridal chamber is decked as a tomb. * Satanic five star room - pentagonal The relationship to Rowena * They don’t love – they tolerate each other * Despises her and loaths her because he misses Ligeia * Describes her looks in comparison to Ligeia: * Fair haired girl with blue eyes – the opposite of Ligeia who is a dark and gothic beauty * He likes her disaffection – he feels like a demon more than a man Analysis with focus on exams 1. Introduction of the disposition 2. Introduction of the text 3. Gothic traits: a. The gothic setting – the symbolic meaning of the room b. The gothic binary of Ligeia and Rowena ...
Words: 369 - Pages: 2
...Term Paper ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe verfasst von Maria Weber handed in on 16th of February 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………........3 2. Poem…………………………………………………………………………………………3 3. Story…………………………………………………………………………………………7 4. External structure……………………………………………………………………………8 5. Complex phonological structures 5.1. Rhyme scheme………………………………………………………………………...9 5.2. Alliteration…………………………………………………………………………….9 5.3. Consonance……………………………………………………………………………9 5.4. Assonance……………………………………………………………………………10 5.5. Onomatopoeia………………………………………………………………………..10 6. Complex morphological and syntactic structures 6.1. Epiphora……………………………………………………………………………...11 6.2. Anaphora……………………………………………………………………………..12 6.3. Epanalepsis…………………………………………………………………………...12 6.4. Figura etymologica…………………………………………………………………...12 6.5. Synonymy……………………………………………………………………………12 6.6. Parallelism……………………………………………………………………………12 7. Complex semantic structures: Imagery 7.1. Personification………………………………………………………………………..13 7.2. Metaphors…………………………………………………………………………….13 7.3. Simile………………………………………………………………………………...14 8. Psychoanalytical approach…………………………………………………………………14 9. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...…….15 10. Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………16 11. Webliography……………………………………………………………………………..17 ...
Words: 5604 - Pages: 23
...Edgar Allan Poe’s poems “To Helen”, “Annabel Lee”, and “The Raven” are unique poems. Poe was a very interesting writer. He wrote numerous poems about his life and how it affected him along the line. Poe had a very sad, mad, depressing life when it started the age of 2 years old. Also, didn’t get over with until he died at age 40. Poe’s poems that we read in class are a lot alike because they all had something to do somewhere in his lifespan. They all talk about how he lost someone very close people to him. Also, Poe had decided that he wanted to write about them in his poems. How are the three poems “To Helen”, “Annabel Lee”, and “The Raven” alike? Poe’s poems are alike because he writes about people and love in his poems. They all have something...
Words: 1206 - Pages: 5
...1. Poe was a master "wordsmith." Through carefully chosen diction he is able to create a psychological effect on his reader. What effect did his description of "Red Death," in the very first paragraph of the story, have on you? Quote those details that provoke this response from you. I thought about some type of plaque. “Sharp pain…dizziness... Bleeding at the pores…” 2. Why does Poe rely heavily on imagery to provide a detailed description of Prospero's hall? To show how specific and how much great detail paid into decorating the place. 3. "He had come like a thief in the night." Where in literature is this allusion taken from? What is the significance of the allusion? You may need to put the expression into a search engine in order to find the source of the allusion. Both verses are from the bible and are referring to the coming of Jesus. 4. The most featured word throughout the story is blood, yet Poe has carefully chosen it to represent horror. Find two passages in the story, where the word blood is used to describe the color. Substitute a word of your choosing and write the passage. Is the passage as effective with your substitution? Why or why not? But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to go (correspond) with the decorations. The planes here were scarlet- a deep blood color. But within the western or black chamber the effect of the ire-light that streamed onto the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghostly (ghastly) in...
Words: 461 - Pages: 2
