A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan 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?

i was asked to analyze this poem but im not sure if there is any irony or not. help please!!!

It has been said that Poe had a magnetic personality

For more discussion on the poem, click here:
<[www.emule.com]>

uhm, or copy paste without the < >

Things have changed here apparently.

Slippery word, irony. It could be said that there is irony in everything. Worse yet, there are different kinds of irony. In literature, one often sees 'dramatic irony', where the audience is shown what is happening, but the characters (on stage) are not aware. Socratic irony is when you pretend to be a dimwit and troll your victims into betraying that they do not know what they are talking about. Still, let's go with,

[www.onelook.com]

"incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs"

Or, from the realm of rhetoric,

[humanities.byu.edu]

"Speaking in such a way as to imply the contrary of what one says, often for the purpose of derision, mockery, or jest. "

Within those definitions, I do not see irony in the Poe piece. Feel free to disagree, of course. Change the definition to 'appearances are deceiving', and irony can be found there.

Someone writing an essay on Poe might find this verse useful. Its from the second verse of Stevie Smith's The Afterthought.

I wonder sometimes by the way if Poe isn't a bit introspective,
One can stand about getting rather reflective,
But thinking about the way the mind works, you know,
Makes one inactive, one simply doesn't know which way to go;

In answer to the question, I think you could say: "It is ironic that a particular belief (e.g., All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream) can give us comfort on some occasions, but make us miserable on other occasions."

That's not a brilliant or amusing irony, but you could squeeze into the definition.

yes
sammm wrote:

> A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan 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?
>
> i was asked to analyze this poem but im not sure if there is
> any irony or not. help please!!!

I read somewhere that the song 'Isn't It Ironic' only contained a couple of examples of actual irony.

An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your Chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic ... don't you think
Chorus

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought ... it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
'Well isn't this nice...'
And isn't it ironic ... don't you think
Repeat Chorus


Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face

It's a traffic jam when you're already late
It's a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic... don't you think
A little too ironic... and yeah I really do think...
Repeat Chorus


Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out

pam

A lot of good comments there.

Hugh summed it up very well; and I like Marian-NYC's finesse.

Ian