Quoth The Raven - Poe Poetry Blog

Poe’s “A Dream Within A Dream” (1849) appealed to me when I was a teenager because, having English as my second language, I was drawn in by its simplicity. Not a long poem, no difficult vocabulary, no convoluted imagery, and a very fine, polished, elegant patina on the poem’s two stanzas. Actually, there are three parts to the poem. First, there is the three-line intro, which I call The Farewell. The poet narrates his farewell kiss to an unnamed interlocutor, apparently someone he is leaving behind. Then, there is a Soliloquy, which could be addressed to the separated loved one referenced in the first segment, but really appears to be addressed to an unnamed audience: perhaps unknown even to the poet himself—to those “who deem/That my days have been a dream.” It could be all of us. Finally, there is The Beach. Poe describes himself standing on a “surf tormented shore,” lamenting his inability to securely hold the sand that pours out through his fingers to be savaged by “the p

A minor element that pops up in several poems of Edgar Allan Poe is the class divide—manifested principally in wealth disparity—between him and others who have influence over his destiny. For example, a cousin, Neilson Poe, once attempted to dissuade Edgar Allan Poe’s future wife Virginia (also a cousin) from marrying him.   Neilson was a lawyer and newspaper owner, who would go on to serve as a probate judge and director of a canal and a railroad, so he clearly ran on a more prosperous track. Poe was adopted by a well-to-do couple (the Allans) but left out of their will. Later, he would have romantic dalliances with society ladies, such as Frances Sargent Osgood, but Poe always struggled financially.   Some of these associations were approached in Poe’s poetry. For example, in “To M——” (1828) , Poe concedes “that my earthly lot/Hath little of earth in it,” and laments the disadvantage it puts him at in pursuing a romantic interest, bittersweetly musing how a society lady could “s

Images from the University of Adelaide © 2014 “Dream-Land” (1844) and “The Haunted Palace” (1839) are, perhaps, the best exemplars of what I call Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Netherworld’ poems and may be considered as companion pieces.   Other examples of the trope are Poe’s “Fairy Land” (1829) , “The City in the Sea” and “The Valley of Unrest” (both 1831). In all of these poems, Poe paints fantastic, imaginary landscapes that may properly be thought to symbolize the human psyche, or important aspects of it. We recognize the correspondence between “Dream-Land” and “Haunted Palace,” first of all, in the structure of the poems.   The opening lines of “Dream-Land” establish its setting as, “By a route obscure and lonely/ Haunted by ill angels only ;” and “Palace” begins, and is set, by contrast, “In the greenest   of our valleys/ By good angels tenanted ” (emphases mine). In both poems, Poe describes the experiences of visitors to either place: In “Dream-Land,” There the traveller