Analysis of Poe's "A Dream Within a Dream"
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ScribdTranslationsAnalysis of Poe's "A Dream Within a Dream"
Translated by
ScribdTranslationsLiterary analysis of the poem A Dream Within a Dream, by Edgar Allan Poe
Literary analysis of the poem A Dream, by Edgar Allan Poe
By Jhon Monsalve
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe is known, above all, for his stories. Along with Kipling and Maupassant, Poe
he is considered the father of the short story. There are very few poems that critics
they rescue. Among those is A Dream (1849), the poem of abandonment, of forgetfulness, of the
hopelessness, of disillusionment, of love gone, of suffering. Here is the English version, and
lower down, its respective translation:
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?
The structure
It seems that, in the English version, the poem is written in octosyllabic verse, divided into two
stanzas: one of eleven verses, the other of thirteen. In the first stanza, the first three rhyme.
verses, and like couplets, the following eight. In the second stanza, the first four verses
remain in couplets, the next three have the same rhyme, and the last six rhyme in
couplets. There are two exclamations in the poem and four questions.
The content
The poem is divided into two stanzas. Each stanza has its own voice. Apparently, the poetic I...
speaking for both: for the one who leaves and for the one who is left. That's what the poem is about:
a man who leaves his partner because he fell out of love overnight. She
tries to salvage something of what might be left, and fails. The only comfort is
that everything that is seen and everything that seems is part of a dream within a dream.
Before the next point, I leave you the poem with the translation by Carlos Arturo Torres.
Translated into verse in a masterful way.
Edgar Allan Poe
A dream
Receive this kiss on your forehead!
And to free myself from a burden
before leaving, I confess
what you got right if you believed
that my days have been a dream;
But is it any less serious?
let hope come to an end
at night or in full sun,
with or without a vision?
Until our last effort
it's just a dream within a dream.
In front of the roaring sea
what punishes this break
I have it tightly in my palm
golden grains of sand.
They are few! And in a moment
They slip away from me and I feel
this lament arises in me:
Oh God! Why can't I
retain them in my fingers?
Oh God! If only I could
save one from the tide!
Until our last effort
Is it just a dream within a dream?
Version by Carlos Arturo Torres
The meaning
Although many interpretations claim that the poem is related to fading
of life, of the past, of the family, of Poe's deeds. This analysis proposes another
hypothesis:
The fact that the man (or the woman, not to mention the poetic I) gives a kiss on the forehead and
not on the cheek or in the mouth says a lot. From there you can see the distance between one and the other: the one who
acts and the one who is passive. The one who gives the kiss on the forehead is the one who leaves without a doubt and the
who receives it, without expecting it there, but in the mouth, is the one who suffers. Apparently she had told him
that their lives, in their love, seemed to be set in a dream. And he replies to her with the same: that it is
It is true that one does not err in saying that their life was a dream, for everything that is lived and what
it seems to be part of a dream within a dream, from which one can awaken from
moment to moment, and leave it as if nothing, in the true dream. In a dream one feels, one loves,
in the awakening, in the other dream, it could be considered that what is felt, what is loved or what
hatred was nothing more than an illusion. There are two dreams: the dream of love and the dream of disillusion.
Reality cannot be seen.
The hope of love disappeared in an instant, from the distance that exists between the dream and the
to awaken, which is the other dream. And the fact that hope had left so quickly
It does not take away what it entails: the fading of the love that he felt.
She (not to say the second poetic self), for her part, feels on a bank of waves.
precipitously, trying to save the last grains of gold, which represent the soul of the
relationship. See how the grains of gold slip away, see how her beloved walks away without being able to do anything.
nothing to avoid it, the only thing left is crying. And finally, when the strength is gone
humans cannot do it alone, divine help is sought, to God, with the question: then
Is it true that everything we see and seem is just a dream within a dream?