Poem Analysis and Other Midnight Ramblings
Technically it's one hour to midnight, but I have no doubt that once I'm done with this post it'll be 1 am (at least!) so when you average two hours you get midnight. Raras logic.
For our second assignment, we were asked to create a visual response to a poem, in my case it's "A Dream Within A Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was a very famous writer of the 19th century. His genres include horror and mystery, though it's not the sort of horror that has you screaming and crawling all over your significant other (Netflix and chill is a LIIIEEEE!) No, Poe's works are macabre and contain a deeply disturbing undertone. Though I'm not sure if his works can be considered psychological thrillers, that's kinda what they do to you---they fuck you up, psychologically. I have a collection of his short stories and I remember one very well, called The Tell-Tale Heart, wherein a man is driven to insanity as he is haunted by the beating of his murdered master's heart. Another one that I love, The Oval Portrait, is about an artist who is so obsessed with capturing the spirit of his wife in a painting, that the wife wastes away while posing for him. When he was done, he exclaimed, "This is indeed Life itself!" only to discover that his wife had died, as if her soul was transferred from her physical being into the painting. I'm getting goosebumps just typing it. That's how you know a story is brilliant.
Poe's dark outlook on life could be caused by his unfortunate life. His father abandoned the family when he was very young, and his mother died just a year after that. He had a tumultuous relationship with his foster father, and his wife died of tuberculosis, the same sickness that had taken his mother. Even Poe's death is a mystery---he was found delirious in the streets and saying "Reynolds! Reynolds!" on the night before his death, though no one knew whom he was referring to. His death certificate has since been lost, though theories span from brain congestion to rabies.
According to Poetry Foundation, Poe was "the principal forerunner of the 'art for art’s sake' movement in nineteenth-century European literature," which if I remember correctly, believes that art is useless and therefore, devoid of a pre-determined function, can aspire to be anything. It is also said that, "Poe’s poetry and short stories greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the late nineteenth century, who in turn altered the direction of modern literature. It is this philosophical and artistic transaction that accounts for much of Poe’s importance in literary history."
But anyway, onto the actual poem itself:
A Dream Within a Dream
By Edgar Allan Poe
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?
My quick interpretation:
From my interpretation, the poem is about time---mainly, the brevity of it. In the second stanza, Poe writes "Oh God! Oh God!" as if in a frenzy, further supported by "While I weep --- while I weep!" He is trying to hold onto something that is rapidly running out---"yet how they creep, through my fingers to the deep... Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp?" Notice the use of "creep" here, as if the sand is sneaking away, and "grasp", as if frantically trying to hold on. The beach is an important element. At the beginning of Stanza Two he writes, "surf-tormented shore", illustrating a coastline being eroded by waves. If one studied Geography, coastal erosion is a process where a coastline seemingly "declines"---a physical depiction of the passing of time. Further down, he writes, "Can I not save one from the pitiless wave?" He describes the wave as "pitiless" as if it is a villain with no heart, and himself as "saving" whatever it is he's trying to save, putting himself in the position of a hero.
But perhaps the most disturbing thing about this poem is how he keeps referring to this life as "a dream within a dream". In the first stanza, he writes, "You are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream." When one is dreaming, one has no sense of time or place, there is only a semi-conscious state of being in and out of existence, and that is what Poe is trying to illustrate here---he is floating through life without meaning, it becomes as insignificant as a dream. He questions the reality of it all, stating that if it is so meaningless, how can it be real at all? "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
In the second stanza, he turns this around---instead of stating that all he sees is unreal, he asks the reader if we think so too---"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?" Essentially, he is asking us to think, to reflect, on our lives, and on what we think about the present reality.
I came to the conclusion that the poem is about time from the tone of it---in the first stanza, it is idyllic, contemplative. In the second stanza, this changes---suddenly Poe becomes hurried, almost terrorised, trying to grasp at things that are running out, trying to hold on to meaning. The last two lines are almost a plea, asking the readers to confirm his existence. Aside from coastal erosion, sand plays an important role---the term "sands of time" comes to mind, as well as hourglasses, which use sand to tell the passing of time. Also, I find it interesting how he refers to sand as countable---"Grains of the golden sand---How few!" where in normal circumstances we would say "how little!" due to sand's uncountable condition. This, again, could be him referring to the brevity of time---almost as if he could count the particles of sand that is running out. Funnily enough, the poem starts with a goodbye---"Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now"---which is another nod to how time, and the events that come with it, is manipulated irregularly in this strange world.
Mysteries that I've been unable to crack---what's with the italics? "Gone, all, one, all"---the only pattern I can decipher is his favour towards absolutes, gone being zero and all being, well, all. Also---"in a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none, is it therefore the less gone?" Less gone would mean more available, though it's interesting how he chooses to divide gone into segments---you can be half-gone, or three-quarters gone, when in fact being gone is an absolute---you either are or aren't.
Mysteries to ponder in my sleep.
Since the project will be about surrealism, I took the liberty to look up surrealist artworks that has to do with time:
And I should really get to sleep now, though I doubt I could with all these Poe imagery running through my head. Fingers crossed I dream up something groundbreakingly surrealistic (surrealistically groundbreaking?) that I could use for ideas!