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Dreams
- GenresPoetry19th Century
5 pages, Unknown Binding
32 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
10.2k books29.1k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 24, 2020
Dreams was another of Poe’s poems that left me conflicted. I wasn’t crazy about it at first, but I liked the way it came together. Despite this, I couldn’t quite bring myself to round my rating up. It’s certainly an interesting read, though.
January 10, 2023
Dreams
Poe must have written so many poems and stories about dreams. "Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! / My spirit not awakening, till the beam..”
Poe must have written so many poems and stories about dreams. "Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! / My spirit not awakening, till the beam..”
December 6, 2017
Dreams are warm and sunny; reality is cold, dark, and windy.
Dreams are youthful and full of hope; reality old and dreary.
Sometimes I want to let Poe know of his logical contradictions. All the things he describes in his dreams are aspects of reality or have branched from his favorite parts of reality. But surprisingly he has some rosy-worded poems and not just the dark content he's infamous for. Dreams is something that many pre-teens and teens probably think of but without the intentional spelling of poetry--how much should we let the world direct us and how much can we direct ourselves?
Dreams are youthful and full of hope; reality old and dreary.
Sometimes I want to let Poe know of his logical contradictions. All the things he describes in his dreams are aspects of reality or have branched from his favorite parts of reality. But surprisingly he has some rosy-worded poems and not just the dark content he's infamous for. Dreams is something that many pre-teens and teens probably think of but without the intentional spelling of poetry--how much should we let the world direct us and how much can we direct ourselves?
May 30, 2017
It's a decent poem about a person who wishes that their dreams were reality. It's not bad, but it's definitely not Edgar Allan Poe's best work.
April 15, 2024
FULL REVIEW ON MY WEBSITE
https://thebookcornerchronicles.com/2...
This one is another pretty okay poem from Edgar Allan Poe.
This one I need to say is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems that sort of hit you hard with its lines. Of course there are few of these lines in this poem. But they count.
If you are a long time fan of Edgar Allan Poe and you have read several of his poems and short stories Im pretty sure that you will like and enjoy this poem.
This one is 100% worth reading. But in my humble opinion this one sort of have failed to pack the punch of some of Edgar Allan Poe’s other short stories and poems.
https://thebookcornerchronicles.com/2...
This one is another pretty okay poem from Edgar Allan Poe.
This one I need to say is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems that sort of hit you hard with its lines. Of course there are few of these lines in this poem. But they count.
If you are a long time fan of Edgar Allan Poe and you have read several of his poems and short stories Im pretty sure that you will like and enjoy this poem.
This one is 100% worth reading. But in my humble opinion this one sort of have failed to pack the punch of some of Edgar Allan Poe’s other short stories and poems.
January 14, 2021
Poe seems to have a lot od poem titles with variations on the word dreams, anyway this was a great little poem, reflecting and desiring something that was lost, but in reality was probably never there in the first place.
Ir is harkening for days gone, which we have shrouded with rose. coloured glasses.
As someone said these are the good old days just wait and see.
It is Israel looking back too Egypt for the leeks and the garlics.
It is beautifully written, but a fatally flawed view of the word.
Not I have banged on longer than his poem!
Ir is harkening for days gone, which we have shrouded with rose. coloured glasses.
As someone said these are the good old days just wait and see.
It is Israel looking back too Egypt for the leeks and the garlics.
It is beautifully written, but a fatally flawed view of the word.
Not I have banged on longer than his poem!
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April 5, 2022Watch the livestream discussion
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November 5, 2023
Loved the end but felt pretty meh about the beginning
July 6, 2024
a chaos of deep passion, from his birth
October 13, 2019
"Dreams"
By Edgar Allan Poe
"Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be- that dream eternally
Continuing- as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood- should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness,- have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen?
'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass- some power
Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit- or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was
That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.
I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
I have been happy- and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality, which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known."
By Edgar Allan Poe
"Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be- that dream eternally
Continuing- as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood- should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness,- have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought- what more could I have seen?
'Twas once- and only once- and the wild hour
From my remembrance shall not pass- some power
Or spell had bound me- 'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night, and left behind
Its image on my spirit- or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly- or the stars- howe'er it was
That dream was as that night-wind- let it pass.
I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
I have been happy- and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality, which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known."
October 21, 2024
"Dreams are warm and sunny; reality is cold, dark, and windy." As simple as that!
That's Poe, the more you know about him, the less are you surprised by his perpetual travel between reality and "the land of his wishes".
And there is no any simpler riddle about which one he'd prefer...
That's Poe, the more you know about him, the less are you surprised by his perpetual travel between reality and "the land of his wishes".
And there is no any simpler riddle about which one he'd prefer...
March 17, 2015
Lovely
August 20, 2015
Perderse en los sueños y nunca querer regresar a la vida real... <3
January 27, 2020
I have arranged my takeaway thoughts into a haiku:
"Some starve for dull wits,
To cleave off the years that frayed
Downy boyhood dreams."
"Some starve for dull wits,
To cleave off the years that frayed
Downy boyhood dreams."
January 31, 2024
After reading his entire collection including all poetry, if one doesn't have a specific review, then it was simple bland and unmemorable.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews