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Unit 2: A Dream within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Love Notes

A common theme within Poe’s work is that of a woman who has died at the height of her youth
and beauty, leaving a bereaved lover behind to grieve. In most of the cases, similarities can be
drawn between the female in question and Poe’s unwell and prematurely deceased wife, Virginia
Clemm. Poe frequently portrays the female as naive or child-like, which remember Virginia’s
young age at the time of marriage. For Poe, the deepest and most lasting love commonly
belonged to the young and innocent protagonists of Tamerlane and Annabel Lee. An approach in
line with other contemporary writers of the Romantic era who deemed that childhood is the
purest state of man. To Helen also highlights the nurturing role of a caring woman. After the
death of the women in his works, the reaction of many of Poe’s male protagonists is to continue
to be emotionally dependent upon the deceased women to the point of obsession.

Example: The narrator of Ulalume roams absentmindedly through the woods but is
irresistibly drawn to her tomb, and the narrator of Annabel Lee sleeps every night next to her
grave by the sea, providing horrid undertones to what seems at first to be faithful love.

Impermanence and Uncertainty

A Dream within a Dream deals most precisely with the disturbing idea that reality is temporary
and nothing more than a dream. As the narrator first parts from his lover and then struggles
with his inability to clasp the nature of a short-lived truth. However, various other poems touch
upon the certainty of the end, as in The Conqueror Worm, one of Poe’s least optimistic poems that
proclaim that all men are affected by unseen forces until their inevitable and unfortunately
gruesome deaths. In a number of cases, the central characters of Poe’s works worry as they see
the transience of their state of being but are incapable of making predictions about the unknown.
The Raven particularly emphasises the dilemma of the incomprehensible by juxtaposing the
inquisitive narrator and the seemingly all-knowing, non-sentient raven’s refusal of a possible
future.

The Subconscious Self

In his short compositions, Poe frequently uses the idea of a double, where the narrator has a
doppelganger that stand for his primal instincts or subconscious. In some cases, for example, in
Ulalume, the double acts as the expression of instinctive wisdom and here the narrator’s psyche
attempts ineffectively to guide him away from the path to Ulalume’s tomb because she knows
that he will face grief and pursues to guard him. In other situations, as in The Raven, the narrator
encounters a double that symbolises his deepest fears, which in turn finally subjugate his
conscious, rational self. Even though the narrator of The Raven at first ignores the message of the
intruding bird, he finishes the poem by understanding its word “nevermore” as the refusal of all
his hopes; he has propelled his soul into the body of the bird. In both the cases, the poetic split
of the two halves creates a dramatic dialogue that emphasises the narrator’s personal struggle.

Nature

As a writer, Poe was part of the American Romantic movement of the early 19th century, when
authors redirected their thoughts to nature to attain a purer and less evil state, away from the
negative impacts of the society. Consequently, Poe often linked nature with good, like in
Tamerlane, where Tamerlane and his childhood friend discover love and happiness in nature
until he leaves to enjoy the companionship of other men and falls victim to ambition and pride.
The poet of “Sonnet - To Science” also mourns the trespassing of man into nature as he “drive[s]
the Hamadryad from the wood” and accordingly loses something of his soul. Many of Poe’s

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