|
|
|
 |
|
Author: Kristen (---.pittpa.adelphia.net)
Date: 01-13-04 19:50
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?
Could someone please help me find the deeper meaning of this poem? I'm thinking he is talking about losing a loved one in the first stanza, and how he will see him in the next life, or dream, because life is but a dream within a dream. In the second stanza, it seems he is having trouble holding onto hope of seeing the person again, or waiting to see them. Any different views would be much appreciated, thanks 
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Hugh Clary (---.denver-01rh15-16rt.co.dial-access.att.net)
Date: 01-15-04 11:26
We are all constantly in the process of dying. Didja click on that link Les posted, Kristen?
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Pam Adams (---.bus.csupomona.edu)
Date: 01-15-04 13:56
I think that it's someone else dying- I don't see the support for arguing that it's himself.
pam
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: patricia (69.156.226.---)
Date: 01-19-04 15:49
In my view, Edgar Allan Poe appears to be confronting his fear of life and death in one confused throw. On the one hand, he appears to me to be resolved in the transient nature of his life, and accepts death as part of the transition. On the other hand he wants to scream at the wave which is about to engulf him and give himself the tiniest assurance that he will remember himself to some measure in the afterlife. It is a powerful vision he evokes by using the waves of the ocean coming toward him - he is drawn in bravery and curiousity, and seems to be envisioning his own death, or rather, a potential for his own death (being pulled into the unknown).
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Robert (---.mal-cres.charterpipeline.net)
Date: 03-06-04 20:44
I Think that some of you are correct. I do not see any reason why he should write about his own death, for throughout almost all of his poems he has fathomed the death of some past loved one. I think your previous conjecture was correct: That he thinks life is a dream within the dream of the afterlife, and when one wakes (or dies) in the dream within a dream, they just transistion into the afterlife
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Robert (---.mal-cres.charterpipeline.net)
Date: 03-06-04 20:47
And one more thing, I believe the pitiless wave to be "doubt" engulfing his last grains of hope
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: domilyn (---.focaldata.net)
Date: 04-02-04 13:05
i think that he has lost someone dear to him and in this loss his sanity is slipping away from him because he can't find a way to cope with the loss. His feelings of torment, confusion, doubt, and inability to cope with the loss-all of these are part of the wave that tries to engulf him. He is drowning in his own misery. The "grains" of sanity that he has left in him are all slipping away and he turns to God for help. He implores God to save him from this insanity that is slowly overtaking his senses. To him, even just one grain of sanity would save him from drowning when he says:
"can I not save
One from the pitiless wave? "
He is questioning his ability to save himself from destruction. When he says "all that we see or seem" are "but a dream within a dream"
in the first stanza, he is saying that his life now is a dream turned into nightmare. He is hoping that this loss is just a dream and because of this false hope, his sanity is in danger.
At least that's what I think this means. It's just one interpretation I can give. I can think of other things but I don't have time right now. Hope this help with the discussion!!! : )
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: 4-5-04 (---.vnnyca.adelphia.net)
Date: 04-06-04 00:16
Is this poem a ballad?
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Celladore (---.187.33.252.porchlight.ca)
Date: 04-06-04 18:53
I think all of you a partly right. But here's my take.
He is saying goodbye, but all good things come to an end right? So it's over, but it's okay because "if hope has flown away, in a night or in a day, in a vision or in none, is it therefore the less gone?" , in other words, there's still hope.
IN the next stanza, he could be standing at the edge of life, or standing at the end of something wonderful and he's holding on to it, but it's gradually falling away. All dreams end. And ..."can I not save one from the pitiless wave"? He wants to hold on and he doesn't want all good things to come to an end. He doesn't want it to. He's in despair. But at the same time, he's facing it and he just wants to know if he'll find a final good thing that's good forever, rather than just something inside of something else.
It could be about death. It could be about losing someone. All in all, I think you're all right.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: felicia (---.clv.wideopenwest.com)
Date: 05-05-04 19:22
I believe that Poe wants to become a part of reality, but he can't grip upon all that he can find of reality( which would be personified by the grains of sand). Not only himself, but his mind are taking him away ( the waves...) to his own world outside of reality. As he writes the poem he is experiencing distress of the fact that he can't bring himself to the reality that he believes exists- but has some doubt to the existance thereof.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: M (---.sfrn.ca.webcache.rcn.net)
Date: 05-19-04 23:45
I think he is writing about a lost love: when leaving someone you kiss them *upon the brow* (like in LOTR when Frodo kisses Sam.. ), *surf- tormented* often used when describing someone who is tormented by love, *One* is in italics, so he must be talking about someONE, if he was making a general statement about death he might have said somehting about all of the sand and not just one grain.
But I really have no clue.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Linda (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: 05-20-04 15:14
I thought I was familiar with LotR, when does Frodo kiss Sam?
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Tarryn (---.mweb.co.za)
Date: 05-31-04 13:30
Please could you help me, if need an analysis of preludes and have tried surfing the net but none is available!
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Raven7463 (---.dyn.grandenetworks.net)
Date: 10-04-04 20:03
It is very well known that during Poe's life time he lost many people that where close to his heart from Tuberculosis which drove him to drinking and was really when he really started being "NUTTY".I think in the second stanza when he speaks of
"O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?"
He is speaking of the loves of his life that he as lost and asking God if it is not possible to be able to save one. Just one person he loved that would not be taken away from him so cruelly by such awful death "the pitiless wave".
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Hugh Clary (12.73.175.---)
Date: 01-26-05 19:13
Ok, come back in 10 mins and I will have it ready. Oh, wait, that was yesterday. Never mind then.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Scott M (---.flshng01.mi.comcast.net)
Date: 02-02-05 23:40
I think Poe is writing about the possibility that life as we know it is inexistant. Is it plauseable that everyone we know and see is the figment of someone elses dream? If that person were to wake our lives would no longer exist. The grains of sand may represent all of us and show how insignificant we all are.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Hugh Clary (---.denver-05rh15-16rt.co.dial-access.att.net)
Date: 02-03-05 11:21
The exact opposite of solipsism, eh? I wonder if there is a word for that.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Scott M (---.flshng01.mi.comcast.net)
Date: 02-04-05 05:32
Main Entry: so·lip·sism
Pronunciation: 'sO-l&p-;"si-z&m;, 'sä-
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin solus alone + ipse self
: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Trey (---.ipt.aol.com)
Date: 02-08-05 21:21
What are some things I could talk about in an explication paper about this poem?
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Hugh Clary (---.denver-03rh16rt-04rh15rt.co.dial-access.att.net)
Date: 02-10-05 11:21
Things within other things. DNA in cells in a person, theme within a theme, picture within a picture, pain within a pain, madness within a fantasy within a movie, and the like.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Ali (---.wp.shawcable.net)
Date: 02-12-05 16:37
Im doing a school project on this and I really like this poem.I have many views on it but im not sure if any are right.I have to present it and do a visual then after i need to bring it further with a biography and such.If anyone could help my analyze this poem that woul great as Im not that greatest at it
~Ali
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Syracuse University Student (---.twcny.res.rr.com)
Date: 02-17-05 18:03
To Ali:
You said you weren't sure if any of your views were "right" but in my Analysis class, we're studying that there is no one right view of a piece of literature. You have to take into account everything that is going on around jyou, and everything that was going on around the author when he wrote the piece to fully understand what he means. So as long as you can explain your thoughts, you should do fine. Good luck!
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Tomasus (---.par.totalfinaelf.net)
Date: 02-23-05 07:07
Well don't forget that he wrote this poem in 1927 when he was ... 18 years old and in the Army !
At that age he was hardly thinking about some dead lovers because he lost none yet or about his own death .
However it is usual that young people ask themselves questions about the meaning of (their) life and associated issues .
When I follow what I feel when I read it , I feel nostalgy and a kind of despair .
Nostalgy for things gone .
And despair that as they never come back , my destiny is to be gone too one day .
I feel that the (golden) grains in the second part are hours , the time that flows away .
You would like it to stop , keep happy instants forever , have eternity .
Yet they are FEW and creep and creep untill none are left and you are alone facing the wave that will not have more pity with you than with the grains .
The first part is more cryptical .
I don't feel that he is thinking of somebody particular when he writes "Take this kiss upon the brow !" .
It is strangely unpassionated - you would kiss a love on the lips , a friend on the cheek .
Kissing upon the brow makes me think of something solemn , grave - a priest who blesses a knight , a grandfather who says farewell to a grandson .
For the same reason I see the parting as being metaphorical - parting from the life ? from the world ?
However there could be a way out - what if the life was a dream within a dream ?
It wouldn't make your suffering and your despair in front of the pitiless flow of time less real (or percieved as such - it can really happen that you weep while dreaming !) .
Yet there is a big difference when a dream is finished , you wake up and see that the world is still going on .
E.A.Poe doesn't say what this world is to which you awake .
He only qualifies it also as dream suggesting that the story doesn't finish there because the chain is open ended - a dream within a dream within ... .
In any case that is what I feel and nobody can know what Poe really felt when he had written that .
It stays that it is a beautiful and moving poem whatever the interpretation .
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Paul (205.246.146.---)
Date: 02-23-05 20:26
Hi I have to explicate this poem, and i need help doing it. I dont know what explicating means or anything. So if you could help me out that'd be great
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Paul (205.246.146.---)
Date: 02-23-05 20:37
ive got to write a paper about it, i guess analysing it line by line using syntax, diction, imagery and tone.
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Pam Adams (---.bus.csupomona.edu)
Date: 02-23-05 20:43
Try clicking on 'flat view.'' That will give you all of the discussion on this thread.
We're happy to help with specific questions.
pam
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Paul (205.246.146.---)
Date: 02-24-05 15:31
What does it mean in the fifth line of the first stanza when poe says that his days have been a dream?
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Paul (205.246.146.---)
Date: 02-24-05 15:55
I also need help on this line, i do not know what it means.
Is it therefore the less gone?
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
|
Author: Pam Adams (---.bus.csupomona.edu)
Date: 02-24-05 20:05
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
--You say that I'm daydreaming- you're right.
pam
|
|
Reply To This Message
|
 |
|
