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

weeps and then begs the question—can he not save one memory from the passage of time? How Notes
does he address this question? He stands amid a violent shore. What does the poet try to hold?
He tries to hold “golden sand” (15). What happens to the sand? The sand creeps “through [his]
fingers” (17). What happens when he loses those memories? He weeps. What can the poet do
about this loss? He cries out to God to save just one valuable memory from the passage of time.
Lines ten and eleven, and twenty-three and twenty are couplets. They consist of two lines that
rhyme with “seem” and “dream,” but they do not have the same feet or meter. This couplet is an
epigram: it is brief, clever, and memorable. For example, “’All’ that we see or seem (10)/Is but
a dream within a dream” (11), and the next: “Is ‘all’ that we see or seem (23)/But a dream within
a dream?”(24) are memorable lines that rhyme with alliteration and assonance. Alliteration is
with the “s” sound in the words “see” and “seem”(10) and (23), and “d” sound in the words
“dream” and “dream” (11) and (24). Assonance is presented with the “ee” sound in “see,” “seems,”
“dream,” and “dream” (10), (11), (23), and (24). The alliteration and assonance within each of
those lines are referred to as an internal rhyme. The first couplet is a reply to a question, are
memories gone? The response is an affirmative statement. The second couplet is a reply to a
question; can he not save one memory from the passage of time? The response requests the
question.

!
Caution Make sure you recognise couplets, epigram, assonance and alliteration in poems
to help in critically analysing them.

This poem rhymes and in the first stanza, the rhyming scheme is AAABBCCDDBB whereas in
the second stanza it is EEFFGGGHHIIBB. It has feet and is metered and the variations in feet and
meter do not match the changes in the rhyming scheme. The couplets do not match in feet and
meter, but do match in rhyme.

Notes In the poem, A Dream within a Dream, Lines one has three feet, and all feet are
trochaic; line two has three feet, and all feet are trochaic; line three has three feet, and all
feet are iambic; line four has three feet, and all feet are iambic; line five has four feet, and
three are trochaic with a final spondee; line six has four feet, and three are trochaic with a
final spondee; line seven has four feet, and three are trochaic with a final spondee; line
eight has four feet, and three trochaic with a final spondee; line nine has four feet, and
three are iambic with a final spondee; line ten has three feet, and three are iambic; line
eleven has four feet, and four are iambic; line twelve has four feet, and four are iambic;
line thirteen has four feet, and three are trochaic with a final spondee; line fourteen has
four feet, and three are trochaic with a final spondee; line fifteen has three feet, and one is
trochaic with the final two as iambic; line sixteen has three feet, and three are iambic; line
seventeen has four feet, and three are trochaic with a final spondee; line eighteen has four
feet with a caesurae in the middle as indicated by the hyphen, and three are trochaic with
a final spondee; line nineteen has three feet, and three are iambic; line twenty has three
feet, and three are iambic; line twenty-one has three feet, and three are iambic; line twenty-
two has three feet, and three are iambic; line twenty-three has four feet, and three are
trochaic with a final spondee; line twenty-four has four feet, and three are trochaic with a
final spondee.

The poet uses six variations the feet vary between three and four, and the meter variation
include—iambic, trochaic and spondees. For the reader, the iambic meter communicates a passive,
a more natural gait than the trochaic. The trochaic meter tends to be more urgent and insistent.

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