Thoughts on "A Dream within a Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe

A Dream Within A Dream

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?

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is regarded by many as the greatest writer of all time. Well, not everyone likes every great poet, since poetry is a matter of taste. Many of his followers proclaim this to be the best work he's done and find it highly inspirational.

I agree. What an absolutely brilliantly, beautiful poem and it flows so smoothly - what a pleasure to read... "A dream within a dream..." - the sound, repetition, rhythm and evanescent visions of the poem gives a mesmerising power to words. It is a gentle expression of deeply contemplative and atmospheric reflection.

The idea of a dream within a dream is interesting and leaves vast room for interpretation. It profoundly relates or summarises the experience of one's reality, perceived reality and letting go of it. It also personifies the tragic death of the poet's wife, his heart-wrenching grief over losing her and subsequently losing his grip on reality. He captured the illusiveness of reality in a dream and a sand analogy. He captures unfathomable loss and grief that we all must experience in a profoundly empty universe.

He couldn't save her from each pitiless wave, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot hold onto the sand - the grains keep slipping away through his fingers into the dark abyss. He cannot save a single one.

Is he describing life or is he describing the dream? Life is so much like a dream, that it can be experienced like a dream - when we are unable to change the course of what's happening. No matter how we plead or how tight we try to hold onto it - reality slips away, and seems to have been a dream.

His attempts to hold on are futile whilst he experiences the agony of losing her again and again... The waves are merciless and the he is left utterly helpless and alone on the shore. Only his grief remains.

He is grieving with a mind that is losing track of reality, yet not released from the illusion - for him, everything becomes an illusion, non-existent. The dream seems to have a reality but it is like the whisper of a breeze, blowing against his being...

The poem is also about death - the certainty of death. No matter how tight we clasp onto something, we have no control over the forces of nature - hope, love, dreams and life will eventually slip away. Just like dreams are gone as soon as we wake up, reality will slip away regardless of our attempts to prevent it. The sand is also time and existence, slipping away. He finds that life is no more substantial than a dream and as impossible to return to. Lives eventually end.

What is the moral of the poem? It is probably to cherish every moment, because you can't get it back. Life is indeed fleeting. Also, we simply exist until the dream is over - we have no real power. The effort to do something substantial is futile. He makes us think about what is real and what is illusion. He makes us question why we place such importance on fleeting things.

The poet describes a journey towards the realisation of life being fleeting. In the midst of all the changes, something doesn't change - and then he realises that "all that he sees and seems was but a dream".

This letter by Poe provides more insight about the loss he experienced:

'Six years ago ... I took leave of her forever and underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially and I again hoped. At the end of a year ... I went through precisely the same scene... Then again-again-and even once again, at varying intervals. Each time I felt all the agonies of her death - and at each accession of her disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity... I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity... It was the horrible never-ending oscillation between hope and despair, which I could no longer have endured without total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, then, I received a new, but - O God! - how melancholy an existence!'