A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allen Poe

A Dream Within A Dream 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? Edgar Allan Poe "A Dream Within A Dream" is a Gothic poem as is characterized by its extremely emotional, inherently sublime, and disturbing atmosphere. Those characterizations are presented in two lines: "O God! Can I not save (21) / 'One' from the pitiless waves?" (22) Extreme emotion, frustration, despair and fear of death, is present when the author cries, "O God!" (21). Awe inherent in the sublime is present when the author realizes he cannot "save (21) / 'One'" (22). The atmosphere is disturbing when the author refers to the waves as "pitiless" (22). The author identifies his psychological anxiety when he says the memories cannot be saved not even "One" (22). Mystery and darkness appears when the author cries, "O God!" (21) Madness and death is present when the author realizes he cannot save even one reality, but time will take it away like the "pitiless wave" (22). The author cries to a supernatural being is desperate with psychological anxiety, for he cannot save one memory, the waves take on personification for being pitiless: they are without regard for his desires. Like the grains of golden sand life and life's golden memories slip through his fingers with the passage of time, much like waves eroding the sand on a beach. Lines ten and eleven, and twenty-three and twenty are couplets. They consist of two lines that rhyme with "seem" and "dream," but they do not have the same feet or meter. This couplet is an epigram: it is brief, clever, and memorable. For example, "'All' that we see or seem (10) / Is but a dream within a dream" (11), and the next: "Is 'all' that we see or seem (23) / But a dream within a dream?"(24) are memorable lines that rhyme with alliteration and assonance. Alliteration is with the "s" sound in the words "see" and "seem"(10) and (23), and "d" sound in the words "dream" and "dream" (11) and (24). Assonance is presented with the "ee" sound in "see," "seems," "dream," and "dream" (10), (11), (23), and (24). In the first stanza, Poe gave a more formal farewell goodbye to his wife. “Take this kiss … parting from you know,” these two lines express Poe’s affection and sadness as he loses his lover, his beloved wife. It is apparent how she claimed life is only a dream, now that Poe acknowledges that fact as she’s already gone. The lines, “Yet if hope has gone away… the less gone?” put across Poe’s hopelessness when it comes to hope. He also repeated the word “in” to emphasize how fragile and sudden hope can disappear. By the end of the first stanza, Poe concludes, “All that we see or seem … a dream within a dream”. He used the alliteration of the terms “see” and “seem” to depict the fact that nothing we see or feel is any more real than a dream. As the second stanza begins, we are introduced to a powerful image, the “surf-tormented shore”. Poe describes himself standing among the anguish roars of waves. This is a metaphor used to express Poe’s torments from the loss of his wife, how he couldn’t cope with the pain, how the waves and roars are over powering him, how he’s drowning in his own misery. The poem progresses with the poet’s struggles of letting go. Poe depicts his impotence through the imagery of his grasping grains of sand. Poe underwent great sufferings as he fails to hold on to the “golden sand”, a metaphor for his dear yearnings. The “golden sand” then falls to “the deep”, to that abstract space where he couldn’t reach. “While I weep– while I weep!” The poet states how he weep as his misery overwhelmed his defenses, as he breaks down. As the pain takes his breath away, Poe entreats to God for savior. Even so, he still beats himself up from the fact that he couldn’t hold on any longer. His pain accentuates as Poe states how he wants to save his loved one from dying, from the metaphor of “ saving one from the pitiless wave”. Here Poe used the repetition of the phrase “O God!” to express his burning desire and aching towards the loss of his wife. Then, to conclude, Poe repeated the two lines, “Is it all we see… a dream within a dream”, to highlight once again the idea that everything is just a dream.