I’m Back!

Hello friends, long time no see. How was your guys’ summer? Hopefully well. My summer was extremely fun! I loved hanging out with my friends, working, swimming and going on vacations, but that is not the point of this blog. Without further ado let’s get into the blog. 

In the first blog of SENIOR YEAR (woohoo can you tell I’m excited?) I will be reading and analyzing A poem by the lovely, yet terrifying Edgar Allen Poe entitled “A Dream Within a Dream, using the Liz Lerman workshop method. 

I’ll insert the poem here: 

A Dream Within a Dream 

By Edgar Allen Poe 

Take this kiss upon the brow! 

And, in parting from you now, 

Thus, much let me avow– 

You are not wrong, you 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? 

 

This poem is one of my favorite pieces by him. The piece was first published in 1849 which isn’t modern at all so the writing form and some of the language is drastically different than what is commonly used in the 2000’s. That’s a big part of why I love historical poets or authors in general. First, we will start off with statements of meaning. I love the tone of this story. He sounds so desperate, so eager yet still so vulnerable. There’s something he wants but his depth of emotions leaves him so unhinged that he’s unable to grasp it, so it leaves him wondering if it’s real life or a dream. I also enjoyed that he uses only one period (.) throughout the piece. It gives me the feeling that these are fast, intense and draining thoughts that must get out, therefore they all begin running together instead of calm, concise thoughts that conclude themselves.  

He also references nature repeatedly in this poem when he talks about the shore in line 13 and the golden grained sand in line 15. He also mentions a pitiless wave in line 22 that seems overbearing in my opinion. He has a few words that are italicized in the piece which are “gone”, “All”, “One” “all”. Two of the words begin with a capital letter and two of them are all lowercase. I don’t really know why he did this, but my brain puts the words together as “all gone, all one.” I feel like he’s trying to express that everything he talks about in the poem is one “thing” or “being” but then he realizes it’s a dream and then it’s all gone when the dream perishes. At the end he cries out to God which means he has some form of religious belief and that he thinks that whatever higher power that he believes in can save him from this everlasting dream.  

Well, in the name of Looney Tunes, that’s all 4 today folks. Thanks for reading my blog, see you next month. Byeeee.