A Dream Within a Dream

by Melissa R Ashbahian

Joined Sep 2020
Published Books 2

Poem- A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Grade Level- 11th Grade

Learning Objective: Students will learn how to understand and interpret poems and learn how to identify a tone switch within the poem.

“A Dream Within a Dream” was written by Edgar Allan Poe and published in 1849. The poem is written with 24 lines and separated into two stanzas.

Edgar Allan Poe | Poetry Foundation

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in 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 a 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?

Watch the above video to help with your understanding of the poem.

Intrinsic Elements Analysis: Diction and Musical Devices in "A Dream …

Discussion Questions:

Using evidence from the text, what does the narrator think about fate and life?
According to the poem, can we control our fate?

Activity:

Get into pairs and think about a time where you felt you had a dream within a dream and talk about what it felt like. Then write a short poem like Edgar Allan Poe’s explaining that feeling.

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