Romanticism Within a Dream
The eclectic storyteller Edgar Allen Poe tells a classic tale of lost love on the surface in the classic poem A Dream Within a Dream. Though, according to poemuesm.com (POEMUSEUM.ORG), he was most notable credited for his science fiction / horror style stories. Further examination of this poem divulges a much bigger picture that reflects heavily on the characteristics of the Romanticism era that is present in much of Poe’s work especially his poetry. A Dream Within a Dream explains how it feels to let something or someone that you truly love go whether to another lover or to death. The strength of the feeling of hopelessness, love, and loss depicts a dreamlike reality. Furthermore, this influence demonstrates how …show more content…
Whether to death or another, there is no escaping this tragedy, and the feelings left are profound. Reaching the depths of the soul the heartache is often unexplainable. Strands of losing hope are prevalent in this poem as it is in much of Poe’s work. Being no stranger to loss he had a dark, almost bone chilling, way of describing how his heartbreak made him feel. Edgar Allen Poe: His Life and Legacy describes the atmosphere 3 year old Poe was subject to at the end of his mothers horrendous illness. ”The desertion of his father and the death of his mother must have had considerable emotional impact on the nearly three-year-old child... he must have remembered something of the melancholy atmosphere poignant silence and hopeless despair as the attendants pass in and out of the sick room”. (Meyer 7) Losing his parents at a young age left young Poe alone and after witnessing the suffering his mother had from disease hopelessness and sadness experienced was ever presently looming in his life daily. “Yet if hope has flown away” (Line 6) suggest that once love is lost all hope goes with it leaving an emptiness that is terrifying. Losing a fiancé to another man and a young wife to the same debilitating disease his mother succumbed to could be enough to cause anyone to lose their mind and leave an unrealistic feeling of going thorough the motions. Romanticism is dominant in the attention to emotion, emphasizing the binary of loss and love and …show more content…
A dream is the only place that something that hurts so deeply can possibly occur. There is a total break in reality here causing confusion and more heartache. “Is all the we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” (Line23 and 24) not only cast doubt in the current state of reality, but also leaves a delusional implication of what the reality of the future holds. In Counting Sheep: The Science and pleasures of sleep and dreams Paul Martin questions whether there truly is a distinguishable difference between dreams and reality. “ It is both conventional and comforting to assume that dreaming and being awake are two profoundly dissimilar and easily distinguishable states. But it may be wrong” (Martin) This investigation leaves implications that dreams and reality are often hard to distinguish especially when emotions are
The eclectic storyteller Edgar Allen Poe tells a classic tale of lost love on the surface in the classic poem A Dream Within a Dream. Though, according to poemuesm.com (POEMUSEUM.ORG), he was most notable credited for his science fiction / horror style stories. Further examination of this poem divulges a much bigger picture that reflects heavily on the characteristics of the Romanticism era that is present in much of Poe’s work especially his poetry. A Dream Within a Dream explains how it feels to let something or someone that you truly love go whether to another lover or to death. The strength of the feeling of hopelessness, love, and loss depicts a dreamlike reality. Furthermore, this influence demonstrates how …show more content…
Whether to death or another, there is no escaping this tragedy, and the feelings left are profound. Reaching the depths of the soul the heartache is often unexplainable. Strands of losing hope are prevalent in this poem as it is in much of Poe’s work. Being no stranger to loss he had a dark, almost bone chilling, way of describing how his heartbreak made him feel. Edgar Allen Poe: His Life and Legacy describes the atmosphere 3 year old Poe was subject to at the end of his mothers horrendous illness. ”The desertion of his father and the death of his mother must have had considerable emotional impact on the nearly three-year-old child... he must have remembered something of the melancholy atmosphere poignant silence and hopeless despair as the attendants pass in and out of the sick room”. (Meyer 7) Losing his parents at a young age left young Poe alone and after witnessing the suffering his mother had from disease hopelessness and sadness experienced was ever presently looming in his life daily. “Yet if hope has flown away” (Line 6) suggest that once love is lost all hope goes with it leaving an emptiness that is terrifying. Losing a fiancé to another man and a young wife to the same debilitating disease his mother succumbed to could be enough to cause anyone to lose their mind and leave an unrealistic feeling of going thorough the motions. Romanticism is dominant in the attention to emotion, emphasizing the binary of loss and love and …show more content…
A dream is the only place that something that hurts so deeply can possibly occur. There is a total break in reality here causing confusion and more heartache. “Is all the we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” (Line23 and 24) not only cast doubt in the current state of reality, but also leaves a delusional implication of what the reality of the future holds. In Counting Sheep: The Science and pleasures of sleep and dreams Paul Martin questions whether there truly is a distinguishable difference between dreams and reality. “ It is both conventional and comforting to assume that dreaming and being awake are two profoundly dissimilar and easily distinguishable states. But it may be wrong” (Martin) This investigation leaves implications that dreams and reality are often hard to distinguish especially when emotions are