i need help interpreting the poem a dream within a dream. i also need to figure out the shyme scheme and the usage of any symbols. or i need a good website that will help me analyze a poem from anyone. i am bad at doin that.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001

Answers

www.helpwurld.com

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2001

It is intriiguing that poetic analysis(a favorite occupation of Poe) is so little applied to his own, short, deceptively simple though obscure poetry. Poecentral.com has articles mainly on the Raven. Some articles at www.eapoe.org, poedecoder.com on other themes. It is tempting to stray right at the outset and compare Hindu theology(a la Boston transcendentalists contemporary to Poe) concerning the dream in a dream. Poe had his own unique thoughts about dreams. For him they are a borderland between this world and the next, often incorporating the feeling of a lost past behind and a dark unknown(hope? despair?) ahead. That is where he feels stuck. I already commented on this poem if you scroll down far enough. You must read BOTH variants(www.eapoe.org) where Poe adds more lines at the end, changing the symmetries of the rhymes. Look for the triple AAA rhymed lines in the mid part and see what that middle line emphasizes in both poems. This is not a common wistful melancholy but a spirit of revolt, of anguish over the transitory nature of life, seemingly at the death of a beloved he was powerless to keep.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001