A dream within a dream

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

A dream within a dream

Rhyme

The poem changes a lot

Two stanzas of different length.

Rhyming 3 lines in a row, then two, then three again.

The scheme for the entire poem is this: 

AAABBCCDDEE FFGGHHHII.

You might have noticed things change very quickly, and without warning, in dreams, just like they do in this poem.

Vocabulary

Kiss upon the brow: A gentle kind of kiss, a kiss a parent might give a child, more platonic. A kiss you might give a deceased person while saying goodbye. 

Avow: implies boldly declaring, often in the face of hostility, what one might be expected to be silent about.

Is it therefore any less gone? What would your answer be to this question? What is the author actually asking here?

Vocabulary

I stand amid the roar: Very visual description. The roar referring to loud, stormy winds, violently roaring. It's not a peaceful day at the beach. 

Surf-tormented shore: Everything is negative. The shore probably doesn't mind the waves, but here the poet makes it seem as if the  waves crashing upon the shore is something that needs to be endured. Maybe he feels like that shore, with wave after wave of bad things happening. 

Golden sand: Sand could refer to the sands of time. The meaning of the color Gold is multifaceted, often denoting generosity and compassion, as well as being synonymous with divinity and power in many religious settings

Vocabulary

Tighter clasp: Clasp means the same as holding something, but it implies a very strong hold, either out of anger, or desperation. 

Pitiless wave: The waves are personified. Waves can't be anything, they are not sentient. However, the author is trying to emphasize again the forces that work against him and taking his love away.

Context: Edgar Allan Poe

was an American writer, poet, author, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. 

Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story, and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction.

In 1835, at age 26, Poe obtained a license to marry his cousin Virginia Clemm, who was then age 13; they were married for 11 years until her death, which may have inspired some of Poe's writing.

Theme and Topic

The Unreality of “Real” Life

Throughout “A Dream Within a Dream,” the speaker expresses a concern that real life is somehow less real than it should be. In lines 1–5, the speaker admits that their life has felt like a dream. And while the speaker is initially unbothered by this the speaker’s feelings on this change in the second stanza. This experience that leads them to weep and call out to God, begging in vain for reassurance. With no divine response, the speaker concludes rhetorically, asking, “Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?” (lines 23–24). The speaker wants the answer to be “No,” even as they fear that the true answer may be “Yes,” which would confirm the fundamental unreality of “real” life.

Theme and Topic

The Ephemerality of Human Experience/The Unstoppable Passage of Time

Edgar Allan Poe wrote frequently about untimely death, which means that much of his work thematically centers on the brevity of life. This poem centers less on death but more on how short the human life is. How fast everything seems to go by and suddenly end. 

In the second stanza, the speaker clearly isn’t upset just about the sand. For them, the sand symbolizes the much more disturbing fact that their life is slipping through their fingers. Like the grains of sand, they have no sure way of holding on to any of their life experiences or saving them from “the pitiless wave” of forgetfulness. Life is quite simply passing them by, and their experiences disappear before their very eyes.

Conversations

How do you spot any of this?

- You do research. 

- Really read the text to try and understand it. 

- Think about your own interpretation and compare it to other's interpretations. Don't automatically assume you're wrong. 

Connections

•  Compare the dream hypothesis to ideas in films like the Matrix or The Truman Show?

• How do the themes love, loss, and the passage of time appear in this poem? Who has the speaker lost? How does he cope with that loss?

• How does the second stanza comment on the speaker’s own mortality?

• Who is the speaker addressing in this poem? Why would he appeal to them?

Homework

1) Pick another poem from the poetry reader.

2) Compare it to "A dream within a dream".

- Do the poems have anything in common or are they very different?

- Think of writing style, vocabulary, context, theme/topic, mood. 

3) Write a 100-200 words about this comparison.