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?
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
For my portion of the Digital Project, I will concentrate on the Do's and Don't of writing a literature paper. Below, is a portion of my rough draft that needed some serious improvements:
In the first stanza, lines 9-11, seen in RED, I analyzed those lines like this:
Poe wants the main character to understand his faults in his relationship, put it to rest and perhaps start anew. That is where hope is concluded in the first part of the poem. The main character should begin anew in his relationship life or hopefully, there will be mutual feelings of friendship with this ex lover. As far as personally with Edgar Allen Poe, him writing this poem, this must have sparked realism in him too. He knew death was upon him and he knew his relationships not just with his lover, but with his (still living) family and friends weren’t the same; death was hopeful for him. Poe’s hopefulness was that of the afterlife; which I think walks hand in hand with hope. Poe had a lot of issues affecting him externally and internally and death was a way he could escape the real world.
[[These references to Poe’s personal life are irrelevant to analysis of the poem. What does the text suggest about the speaker’s life?]] : This is what Dr. Brown marked on my paper :(...but :) at the same time
For my Final Draft, I first made the paragraph above, a lot shorter and concise:
Even though the two cannot be lovers, friendship is still an option. This stanza goes full circle. The kiss represents a subtle token that the two can still maintain a platonic relationship. While the first part of this piece allows the narrator the ability to maintain a sense of hope and determination in a relationship, it seems dreamlike, the second stanza shows frustration mixed with the same determination. The narrator must face the reality that the wonderful relationship that he has created in his imagination, like sand, is slipping from his grasp.
Not only did I talk about lines 9-11 from the first stanza, I also summed up the last part of the poem as well lines 23-24 (the second stanza and the gold color) as a whole.
I don't know if Dr. Brown liked this paragraph, but I felt it was a lot better than the rough draft version.
~Amanda Edlow
