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    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe 's "A Dream within a Dream"
    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe 's "A Dream within a Dream"
    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe 's "A Dream within a Dream"
    Ebook34 pages23 minutes

    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe 's "A Dream within a Dream"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe 's "A Dream within a Dream," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 28, 2016
    ISBN9781535816656
    A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe 's "A Dream within a Dream"

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      A Study Guide for Edgar Allan Poe 's "A Dream within a Dream" - Gale

      13

      A Dream Within a Dream

      Edgar Allan Poe

      1849

      Introduction

      As a poet and short-story writer, Edgar Allan Poe confronted a number of dark themes, including death, despair, grief, and madness. In the poem A Dream within a Dream, published late in Poe's life, he questions the nature of reality, wondering whether everything that may be perceived is actually nothing more than a dream. The speaker in the poem, after bidding farewell to a loved one, comments on the loss of hope and his intense feeling of being disconnected from reality. As the poem progresses, the speaker uses language that repeatedly underscores his sense of grief and despair at the inevitable passage of time. The poem closes with the speaker repeating the sentiment of the preceding stanza, asking if the illusion, the dream of life, is really all that exists.

      A Dream within a Dream was originally published in 1849 in the Boston newspaper Flag of Our Union. Two earlier versions of the poem were published, the first in 1827, in the newspaper Yankee, under the title Imitation. A later revision was published in the same paper two years later, under the title To———; the addressee is not identified. The poem in its much altered, final version was published first in Flag of Our Union and again in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe in 1850. The poem is also found in the 1984 collection Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales.

      Author Biography

      Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was orphaned not long after. Poe's father, David Poe, was an actor who abandoned the family in 1810 and is believed to have died shortly afterward. Elizabeth Poe, also an actor, died in 1811. The Poe children were separated following their mother's death. Poe's sister, Rosalie, was taken in by foster parents, while Poe's brother, William, was raised by his paternal grandparents. The wealthy John and

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