‘A dream within a dream’- Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow! 1

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. 11

I stand amid the roar 12

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? 24
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most ingenious American writers who throughout his gloomy prose

and poetry elevated the American literature in the world and passed his influence of literary

greatness. He is noteworthy for his short stories and poems evoking notes of tragedy and

mystery. Poe was not just a genius but also a master of style and structure as is considered by

many the father of short stories. Being regarded as a master of suspense and horror, also known

as a Gothic style, Poe makes brilliant use of sentence structure, punctuation, word choice,

imagery, rhythm and tone in his works. Such a style is also reflected in his poetry, which is

intense and extraordinarily profound (Taylor 2015).

One of his poems ‘A dream within a dream’ shows Poe’s struggle with his existential crisis in the

last year of his life, 1849. Poe was undeniably undergoing rigid times with the loss of his loved

ones, substance and alcohol abuse (Mabott 2018). It is for these reasons that the poem is a

representative of the author’s misery, solitude and anguish. Poe is well known for his horror style

of depression and suffrage and this poem is a tail of a man who questions reality at its

profoundest core and because of his emotional state, the author and the narrator both seem to

have difficulty distinguishing between fiction and reality. The author creates two different

settings in the two stanzas of the poem, where in the first he offers us his farewell and in the

second he ponders the meaning of life and existence. The contrasting scenes though different in

setting are closely intertwined in a number of ways. The first parting of the narrator from a loved

one is him showing us the mortality of that love, whereas the second part moves into a more

passionate setting questioning the inner world of the narrator.

The first stanza starts off by telling us how everything that we do in life is not far away from a

dream. The narrator gives his farewell to us as he tells us that his life has been just a dream. It is

a dramatic opening showing to the reader that our days in life can as well be similar to our
dreams (1-5). It has however a double meaning, our days could be nicer in some cases when our

dreams are happy but at the same time could be lost and fading just like we fail to remember

dreams when we wake up from one. The second part of the first stanza acquires an even more

pessimistic and tragic tone when it says that even hope has left. Poe tells us that there is nothing

left, not even hope which is gone in its all possible forms. The statement in the end is that thus all

we have is a dream within a dream, portraying the line between reality and fantasy as blurry and

indistinguishable (5-11).

The second stanza depicts the narrator standing by the beach while picking up on grains of sands,

which represent a powerful symbol, being the narrator’s life, slipping away from his fingers just

like a sand clock, where time passes by. He cannot stand the fact that the sand slips away from

him, being all his lifetime memories. The sand is also time passing and signifying an imminent

death. The narrator is not just aware of his mortality but he is also powerless in the face of death

(12-18). By the end of the poem the narrator is lost and confused while he weeps his futility and

questions reality. The contrast with the first stanza here is that while in the former he states that

life is but a dream within a dream, here the narrator is losing confidence and the closing question

becomes a desperate begging, as it is hoping that he can take some of his memories with him in

the afterlife, even though he believes that is not possible. Poe uses the sea as he often does in his

other works as a setting for death and decay. The ‘surf tormented shore’ is a metaphor

representing the sea washing away the shore, the unmerciful sea rinsing away his existence, his

memories (Mabbot 2018). Here the narrator begins to cry out ‘O God’, showing that his soul is

restless and in despair. He asks God if he can save his memories from the pitiless sea, knowingly

however that it is not possible ( 19-24).

The poem is in the first person, the narrator melting with the author’s intense feelings of being

left by a loved one or in the edge of death. It has a lyrical overtone with lots of different rhyme

types, for instance AAABBCCDDEE in the first stanza and AABBCCCDDEEFF in the second

and with rhyming words such as creep, weep, deep which reflect the main theme of the poem

being a tragic one, followed by death, memories of life, reality and fantasy (Khurana 2017). The

most powerful metaphor are the grain of sands which are a mystery and opened to different

interpretations from the memories of the life of the narrator as stated above to time passing by as

in an hourglass, etc. In addition the author uses a form of alliteration to enforce his idea of

reality and fiction in the phrases ‘all that we see’ and all that we seem’. He purposely makes use

of this two to suggest that neither is more real than a dream (10-11, 23-24). ‘A dream within a

dream’ is a powerful poem pondering dramatic themes of life and existence, the blurring line of

reality and fantasy, reflecting the narrator’s and authors emotional struggle and his belief that all

that we experience in life might just be a dream within a dream. The grains of sand are a potent

symbol and metaphor demonstrating our futility in the vortex of the reality/fantasy paradigm as

we are eventually washed away from existence as human beings along with our memories by

powerful forces which are uncontrollable, in this case the sea.

Edgar Allan Poe’s legacy in literature has been tremendous and his works continue to be

mysteriously beautiful in all aspects. In this poem analyzed here, he amalgamates carefully word

choice and sentence structure, impeccable use of punctuation for dramatic purposes and heavy

imagery to influence the reader. Above his style the themes and motifs pondering existential

philosophical issues from life and reality to death and fantasy in just 24 verses is a sign of genius

and mastery work. This poem shows in my opinion the last days of the great Edgar Allan Poe,

just before he died, his internal spiritual war with existence and reality, a war which he might not
 have won physically but has absolutely triumphed upon spiritually with his legacy. The narrator

might not have been able to take his memories with him, who knows, we will never know, but

what we know for sure is that he left something intrinsically beautiful behind.

Works Cited

“Samuel Taylor Coleridge.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, 6 Oct. 2015,

www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/edgar-allan-poe.

Mabbott, Thomas Ollive, et al. “Edgar Allan Poe.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia

Britannica, Inc., 4 Oct. 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Edgar-Allan-Poe.

Khurana, Simran. “Analysis of 'A Dream Within a Dream' by Edgar Allan Poe.” ThoughtCo, Sep.

17, 2017, www.thoughtco.com/a-dream-within-a-dream-2831163.