Ramzi’s Academics in Eighth Grade

A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, i 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 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?

 What I liked:

I really liked how he rhymed the last word of two sentences like:
“All that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?”
I also liked the second stanza talks about his dream and the descriptions are excellent such as:
“grains of the golden sand-
How few! Yet how they creep” it also shows that reader a very clear image of the location.
Another thing i like is how he used amazing vocabulary to helping him rhyme words such as brow and avow which showed that he didn’t just use the first word that came into him mind.

What I disliked:

I didn’t like how he didn’t follow the pattern of the last rhyming words. For example: stanza one, line three he rhymed words three times in a row and in stanza two, line seven he rhymed three times in a row again.
One thing i also disliked was how i couldn’t figure out what the first stanza meant over a long period of time.

Questions:

Some questions i have about this particular poem are:
- what does the first stanza mean
- what is the main message he wants the reader to get
- why did he choose to go in AA, BB ,CC pattern instead of AB, AB, CD, CD pattern
- why did you choose the location of a beach in the second stanza.

Figurative language:

Some figurative language he used was:
- Metaphor/ he is comparing a dream to a beach or a kiss through out the poem
- Simile/ there are no similes in this poem because it doesn’t contain the words like or as
- Personification/ some examples are : “grains of the golden sand- how few! Yet how they creep.” and “One from the pitiless wave” and ” O god! Can i not grasp”
- Repetition/ an example is : “While i weep-while i weep!”
- Consonance/ there are none of these i the poem
- Onomatopoeia/ a word that is onomatopoeia is ” avow”.
- Internal rhyme/ some of these words are: “Take this kiss upon the brow!” “Is but a dream within a dream”
- End rhyme/ this was repeated through out the entire poem. One example is: “And i hold within my hand” “Grains of the golden sand”
- Assonance/ an example on this is: “All that we see or seem”
- Alliteration/ an example on this is: “All that we see or seem”

Biography Summary:

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Both his parents had died before he was three. Is parents were famous actors. He then went to one of the best boarding school in the area and went to the University of Virginia. He was forced to leave school because he refused to pay his gambling debts. After school in 1827 he joins the United States army and attendant the United State Military Academy but had to leave because lack of financial support. He then wrote his first published poems in 1827 and his second published poems were in 1829. He then began to sell short stories. In 1835 he became editor of the Southern Literacy Messenger. Then in the next ten years he called himself a poet, a short story writer and an editor. He then married his 12 year old cousin in 1836 but after her death his depression led for his alcoholism worsened. He died on October 7, 1849 of acute congestion of the brain. Today Edgar Allan Poe is known as one of the first American writers who was able to become a major figure in literature.