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 :-)

Kristen, go here for background on Poe:

[www.eapoe.org] />
Also, here:

[www.emule.com] />

Les

He has lost someone he loved: Himself.

Do you think he is in the process of dying?

No.


Les

We are all constantly in the process of dying. Didja click on that link Les posted, Kristen?

I think that it's someone else dying- I don't see the support for arguing that it's himself.

pam

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).

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

And one more thing, I believe the pitiless wave to be "doubt" engulfing his last grains of hope

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!!! : )

Is this poem a ballad?

No, it's a narrative.

Les

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.

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.

life is fleeting

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.

I thought I was familiar with LotR, when does Frodo kiss Sam?

Please could you help me, if need an analysis of preludes and have tried surfing the net but none is available!

[tinyurl.com] />
[tinyurl.com]

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".

what is the whole poem about?? tell me in 10 mins

Ok, come back in 10 mins and I will have it ready. Oh, wait, that was yesterday. Never mind then.

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.

The exact opposite of solipsism, eh? I wonder if there is a word for that.

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

What are some things I could talk about in an explication paper about this poem?

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.

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

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!

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 .

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

Have you asked your teacher what your requirements are?

pam

ive got to write a paper about it, i guess analysing it line by line using syntax, diction, imagery and tone.

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

What is the theme of this poem?

Loss.

pam

What does it mean in the fifth line of the first stanza when poe says that his days have been a dream?

I also need help on this line, i do not know what it means.

Is it therefore the less gone?

You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;

--You say that I'm daydreaming- you're right.

pam

to answer that question addign in addition everything that you guys wrote, i think that is a dream within a dream because he had live a dream with that special person, but he want to go back and get some of those feeling and have them again, and thiking about going back to those time he had spent with that special person is a dream that gives him some hope, and is better that than nothing for him in his desesperation, and the experience he had ang trying to go back to the past with memories is his dream within a dream becuase its was imposible for him livinng in this earth.... so there are to dreams, the one he had live, and the one he wants which is having that person again...

What is the meter,rhythm,and stanza of this poem????? please someone tell me!

What is the meter,rhythm,and stanza of this poem?

Iambic & anapestic trimeter. Yes, and maybe with trochaic and dactylic substitutions. All endings are masculine and acatalectic with rhyming couplets. You will have to look up those words, though, or be embarrassed when asked to expand on them.

I don't know what you mean by stanza, but there are two stanzas, the first of 11 lines, the last of 13. Does that mean anything? 11+13=24. 24*3=72. 72=the average life of a man? I doubt it.

For help on the unfamiliar terms, either search them on Google, or try here first:

[www.poeticbyway.com] />
For searching Google, type in, for example, prosody anapestic trimeter and you get back:

[www.google.com] />
Always include the word prosody so Google will get the right hits.

[www.google.com]

[i wrote this to help myself understand what the poem says to me - i find it easier to think through my keyboard for some reason. It's a bit random and inelegant but i'm posting it anyway, perhaps it will help some people see the poem in a different light. Perhaps i'm just crazy and noone agrees, i don't really mind]

Am i the only person who thinks that the poem could quite easily work with the stanzas reversed?
While in the first stanza he appears to assert "all that we see or seem/is but a dream within a dream" the second one ends with his asking us if that is the case. In my experience of poems this situation tends to be reversed - the poet asking us a question to provoke thought then affirming his hyopothesis with the next stanza and ending in an assertion of his view.
Because of this, that last question mark really strikes me as significant. It seems to me that Poe is hoping for some sort of re-assurance, for someone to tell him that reality is in place and the world is not the 'dream within a dream' that he has imagined. At the very least Poe seems to be encouraging us to ask the question, and by undermining his initial statement i think he does so very well.

There's a couple of things that bother me about the poem. Firstly, what exactly does he mean by this 'dream within a dream'? Taking at face value i guess it would have to mean that our experiences of life are not in harmony with reality - as if you live in a comatose state for life and only dream things, and that furthermore you don't even live in a dreaming state anywhere other than someone else's dream (God's?). It's hard enough simply to imagine the idea of our world being a dream without shooting off into considerations of the real reality's real reality - but perhaps this is the point. Once you've conceptualised the idea of 'a dream within a dream' why not go further - for all we know life is 'a dream within a dream within a dream', etc. This ridiculous and complicated proposition then becomes a suggestion of the absurdity of our faith in reality, a 'dream within a dream' is Poe taunting us - because he realises that there is nothing we can be sure of, we can never be sure that we percieve what happens in reality and therefore we can do nothing but question everything. No wonder the stanza hs a depressing tone!
But i don't like that idea. Since i started writing the paragraph i've thought of what in my eyes is a far more plausible explaination; i think Poe believed in a dualistic Universe, spirit and matter, God and man. The dream of our existence within the greater dream of all existance - our minds a microcosm of Everything. Why then a 'dream within a dream', not 'life within life' or 'being within being'? Because existence is thought, life is imagination. In dream man is no longer tied down by the physical - he can fly, he can talk to the dead, he has free rein over his existance. but he is still man, and the greater truths of the cosmos exist on a higher plane.

"yet ...is (hope) therefore the less gone?"
I can't see this line meaning, as i believe someone earlier suggested, that there is still hope. It seems to me you could paraphrase the first half of this first stanza thus: "ok, i accept now that my life has been a dream - but no matter how i lose hope it's still lost" Ie, that he was disaffected with life because he didn't believe in the existance of anything greater, but now he's prepared to accept his life is 'but a dream' (and that it is only part of a greater dream) he still feels his unhappiness - his lack of hope (hope of what? i get the impression, particuarly from the second stanza, that it's hope of enjoying life to the full, but i'm not confident about that)


The second stanza screams metaphor to me, and i completely agree with the person above who read 'the golden sand' as Time. For a start, the egg-timer allusion is so strong,- - sand dropping down from his hands as it drops thru a timer to mark time. It is immortal, eternal, unquenchable, and importantly - there's nothing man can do about it. Eventually, all the sand will fall, will be swallowed up by the sea.
As well as this relatively simple idea of wanting to slow time, to stop the onslaught of death, i feel there is a much more cosmic appeal hidden beneith the lines. I see the Sand versus the Sea as Man versus God, as physical being versus a more ineffable existence (spirit), the tangible versus the immortal. The next time you're on a beach watch a tide sweep away the sand and ask yourself - where does it go? Obviously some is washed back onto the beach but some drifts off into the vastness of nothing, it's a fantastic mataphor for dying - your existence being enveolped by a greater force, a greater purpose.

I really dont' know much about poems but I think its someone else dying and him saying he can not grasp the grains of sand any tighter meaning that can he not help more that he has helped the the one he kissed a brow to? which the person he kissed is dying and they are in a dream within a dream...just puttin my idea out there..PEACE OUT