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20 pages 40 minutes read

Edgar Allan Poe

A Dream Within a Dream

Edgar Allan PoeFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1849

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Background

Literary Context

Edgar Allan Poe is classified today as a central figure of the Romantic movement in the United States. The Romantic movement is a literary era generally spanning from 1800-1850 in the United States, which had a significant impact on the literary themes of the 19th century. This movement started in Europe in the mid-18th century as a reaction against Enlightenment ideals and Neoclassical poetry. Key figures in the English Romantic movement with works similar to Poe include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Shelley, and William Blake.

Romantic poetry is less concerned with romantic love specifically. Characteristics of this movement include a shift away from rationality, focusing instead on imagination and emotions. Romanticism was also a reaction against the Industrial Revolution and considered the human relationship with nature. Many Romantic poets praise nature; Poe writes nature as an extreme version of the sublime. In his works, Poe considers nature’s danger and often grotesque power rather than meditating on nature’s grandeur.

Because Poe rejected Transcendentalism—the main branch of Romanticism in the United States—he is often classified today as a pioneer of dark romanticism. While Transcendentalists believed that humankind could attain perfection through seeking wisdom and good deeds, dark romantics focused on the supernatural and how easily human beings could be corrupted by sin. Dark Romantics also viewed nature as dangerous and full of supernatural snares that could not be tamed. This is also a hallmark of American Romanticism, where the natural world was still mysterious to the descendants of white settlers and considered the space of the colonized other. This period’s prominent dark romantic authors are Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Emily Dickinson.

“A Dream Within a Dream” was written at the end of the Romantic period and the end of Poe’s life. It fits precisely within his trademark dark romantic writing, featuring a dangerous and sublime landscape, as well as deep considerations of the poet’s imagination and emotion. The poem departs somewhat from his favorite poetic subject: the death of a beautiful woman. However, “A Dream Within a Dream” meditates on lost love and how this loss devastates the poet to the point where he questions the nature of reality. This loss fits with similar motifs in his other poems about a loss like “Annabel Lee,” “The Raven,” and “Ulalume.” It also offers weighty psychological and philosophical questions, similar to the ones put forward in short stories like “The Fall of the House of Usher” or “Ligeia.”

Historical Context

The 1840s in the United States were a time of rapid technological growth and change caused by the Industrial Revolution. Steamboats and railroads were connecting the country. Gold was discovered in California in 1848, causing a significant migration in 1849. This is one possible reading for the “golden sand” in the poem (Line 15). However, like the sand, the gold dust found proved less substantial for most migrants to the gold rush than expected.

The American Civil War was still more than a decade away. Poe died the same year the poem was published, so his writing rarely touched on the question of slavery. His critique of human existence was based more on individual failings than large-scale societal failures like slavery.

Tuberculous was a widespread public health concern in 19th century America. Symptoms of this lung disease include a chronic cough, mucus containing blood, fever, sweats, and weight loss. It was sometimes called consumption because of the rapid loss of weight and occasionally disturbing ethereal beauty (pale skin and bright red cheeks) exhibited by the disease’s victims. Depictions of women with consumption inspired supernatural and vampire folklore. This disease devastated Poe’s personal life; since he often lived in urban poverty and was exposed to it, he lost his mother, brother, and wife to tuberculosis.

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