Edgar Allen Poe Poem Project
please be gracious and give me good grade
Language Style:
Imagery:
In all three of the poems by Edgar Allen Poe, he uses imagery to help put the reader in the place of the main character. For example, in "A Dream Within a Dream", Poe uses "Grains of the golden sand-" (line 15), in "A Dream", he uses "What through that light, thro' storm and night"(line 13). And in "Dreams", he uses "Or the spell that bound me- 'twas the chilly wind"(line 21). Poe uses these elements to enhance the way the reader feels about the situation with the poem. When he uses imagery, it is not always literally describing the way something looks or feels, but describing how something looks, feels, tastes, or sounds to maximize the depths of how the poem flows. For example, when Poe says, in "A Dream Within a Dream", when, he says "Grains of the golden sand-", he isn't writing a poem about how beautiful sand is, but he's using the depiction of the sand to represent how time can slip through our fingers.
Refrain:
My brohemoth, the Poe memeth also uses refrains in his Dream Trio. This helps put emphasis on a certain word or phrase that enhances the overall meaning of the poem. For example, in "A Dream Within a Dream", in lines 19 and 21 "O God! Can I not grasp/ .../ O God! Can I not save". In "A Dream", he uses "What though that light, thro' storm and night,/ .../ What could there be ore purely bright" in lines 13 and 15. And in "Dreams", he uses "I have been happy, tho' in a dream./ I have been happy, and I love the theme." (lines 27-28). Poe uses these to put emphasis on different themes in each poem. in "A Dream Within a Dream", he uses the refrain to depict the lack of disability the narrator has, and how (s)he purely cannot grasp nor save others and help them realize that all we do can slip away from our grasp at any given moment. And similarly, in the other poems, he uses the refrain to help put a major emphasis on what is said in 1 line by repeating it.
SynTACTICAL Style:
Poe uses many enjambments in his poems, and they help to flow the text from one line to the next, so that there seems to be little to no pause. For example, in "A Dream Within a Dream", it says "I stand amid the roar/ Of a surf-tormented shore," (lines 11-13). In "A Dream", it says "In visions of the dark night/ I have dreamed of joy being departed" (lines 1-2). And in "Dreams" [wow Poe, so original, counld'tve come up with a more creative title for a poem about dreams?...] it says "My spirit not awakening, till the beam/ Of an Eternity should bring the morrow." (lines 2-3). The reason Poe uses the enjambments is because sometimes the end of the line is only used to fit the rhyme scheme, or amount of syllables that are constantly used in the poems throughout. When an enjambment is used, it is used to use a very small pause in between lines, unlike when punctuation. Like in "A Dream Within a Dream', "I stand amid the roar/ Of a surf-tormented shore"; the reason there is an enjambment is to continue the description of the "shore" the guy is on (hint hint, it's metaphorical).
Thematic Style:
Theme:
It would be an understatement to say a common theme is dreaming. But I believe the reason he so often talks about dreams is because our dreams are what we truly want with our lives, and to us, all of our hopes and promises for a perfect future rely on our dreams, and I believe that's why he so often refers back to dreams. Poe uses extended metaphors in all 3 poems (in "A Dream Within a Dream" when it keeps referring back to the ''surf-tormented shore'', in "Dreams" when it continually refers back to the Hope that dreams give us and how they are the "sunniest hour hath known".