A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allen Poe is a poem about the loss of love , the heartbreaking sadness that one faces and the ephemeral nature of time and fleeting of existence. The poem is well known due to Poe’s various poetic techniques that have been used to represent the excruciating context that Poe expresses in his poem. The main theme of the poem is the loss or lack of love that one faces. By taking a look at Poe’s use of concealed tone and structure, the various poetic techniques used and as well as the concealed literary devices; Poe expresses an excruciating context.
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One can easily notice that Poe wrote this Poem after he has lost someone of his love ; Poe writes the poem as a reflection to his misery on the horrible event therefore the poem holds his misery for the loss of love , burden and as well the hopelessness and lament towards life. Poe uses a very depressing tone in his poem to express his love for his loved one in the poem; Poe creates two stanzas that are disparate but however ultimately linked. Poe makes both the stanzas describe that life slips away from us like a long lost lover or also a fistful of “golden sand “creeping through fingers. Gradually life slips away like sand, or maybe even an hourglass. Poe is secretly trying to tell us by the two stanzas that life is precious but sometimes death can come like a wave from a surf tormented shore and take your loved one away. Poe makes the structure of the poem ordinary and typical to ending in only couplets or triplets however the theme of “loss of love” is often periodically rephrased in some way in each of the stanza’s. Throughout the Poem, Poe also exclaims with sorrow and angers many rhetorical questions that are predominantly asked to only utter his importance and outburst rather than an answer. An example of his exclaimed rhetorical questions would be when in the last stanza Poe makes all the last lines expressed in questions rather than answers.
In the First Stanza, Poe starts the Poem with a formal good bye to his loved one (line 1 and 2) “Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you know” these two lines express Poe’s affection and anguish as he loses his loved one. Poe also gives the reader the image of a kiss on a brow and a parting which indirectly means that he and his loved one are parting ways in the beginning. This event that Poe uses the image of could symbolize that it is the end of a relationship, time or even life. It is putative how Poe’s loved one claims that life is only a dream, now that Poe accedes that fact as his loved one has been extinct from his life, Poe therefore mentions “Yet if hope has flown away …. The less gone? (Line 6 and 9) put across Poe’s hopelessness when it comes to hope. Poe also repeated the word “in” two times in two lines (line 7 and 8) to accentuate how hope is fragile and can be destroyed abruptly at any moment that no one knows. Poe concludes the first stanza by mentioning that “All what we see or seem….. a dream within a dream “. Here, Poe uses alliteration within the terms “see” and “seem” to delineate the reader the fact that nothing that one see’s, feel’s or even notices is any more real than a dream.
In the second Stanza, Poe uses a disparate environment to express the situation ” loss of love” ; the excruciating context in the Poem. Poe introduces the reader to his lack of love or impotence in other words through the imagery of himself grasping grains of ” golden sand” that “creep”. This image that Poe represents in his Poem is a significant idea in Poe’s Poem due to it being ultimately Poe’s central argument that Poe seems to keep on rephrasing on each of his stanzas In the poem. First, Poe’s image of “golden sand ” falling delineates the readers of an hour glass which then symbolizes time passing by. The narrator, Poe grabs sand that trickles between his finger , which then reminds him of the meaninglessness of life, and that nothing is more real than a dream. The third piece of imagery that Poe introduces the reader to is the powerful image of the “surf – tormented shore “and put’s himself standing among the roars of waves. By placing himself among the tormented roars of waves, Poe creates a metaphor that is used to express Poe’s torments from the loss of his loved one, and how the waves and roars are powering him and at the same time drowning in his own misery. The poem continues and is basically all about the narrator’s struggles and pain that he feels for his loved one. All of these metaphors have meanings close to the ephemeral nature of time, which leads Poe to the conclusion that life almost seems to have no meaning and no purpose with the lack of love , as life passes by so fast. The sand and the surf tormented shore or waves are an example that Poe uses to symbolize slow and gradual decay of life and love. The waves keep hitting the shore, until slowly the shore gets depleted by the everlasting waves. All of these symbols lead back to these images which also ultimately lead back to Poe’s theme of ” Is it therefore the less gone? and the lack of love that one faces. ” While I weep- while I weep!” (Line 7). Here, Poe gives the reader the notice that how his weep as his misery overwhelms his defenses, as he pains for the loss of his love. As Poe explains his misery, weep and pain he implores God for help. Poe emphasizes his pain as Poe wants to save one that has already passed away by placing a metaphor of ” saving one from the pitiless wave” , Poe continuously uses the phrase ” O God ” to express his feelings and emotions towards his loved one. Then to conclude, and finish with the theme Poe uses two questions at the end of his poem “Is it all we see…. A dream within a dream”, to rephrase once again that everything was a dream and that of the ephemeral nature of time no one can surmount life and that everything will be simply just a dream.
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In Conclusion, ” A Dream Within A Dream ” by Edgar Allen Poe, is a poem that has use of many poetic techniques and ways to express such an excruciating idea where loss, love, anger and the ephemeral nature of time all take place is overall very effective as Poe manages to do so in such a short poem with only two stanzas. The poem displays some very important aspects of life such as death, the ephemeral nature of time and hope in some cases as well within the theme of “loss of love” and just one who loses their love. Despite this poem, ” A Dream Within A Dream” will still be remembered by myself on how Poe’s perception that everything around us now is just a dream and nothing’s as real as we know it.
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