Edgar Allan Poe Metaphors

Edgar Allen Poe, one of the most widely known authors of horror, mystery, and poetry. He wrote poetry since he was 13 years old. He attended the University of Virginia but in order to pay for the school, he started gambling and ended up losing most of his money and had to withdraw from the university. Poe published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827, around the same time he joined the army. In 1830, he won a spot at West Point. In the same year we was able to publish a second book. One of the genres in which Poe excelled at most was mystery. One of the reasons that may be is because his own life was a mystery. His dad abandoned his family when he was young and when Poe was only 3 years old, his mother passed away. He was then

placed in a foster home. At the young age, Poe wasn’t able to create lasting memories with his parents. One poem Poe wrote was, A Dream Within a Dream, which was written in 1849. The poem is 24 lines long and divided into two stanzas. The first stanza shows Poe’s, first person view of parting from his lover. Both stanzas include 6 or 7 syllables per line and follow an AA-BB-CC-DD-EE rhyme scheme. Edgar Allen Poe included many Poetic devices including metaphors, symbolism, and alliteration in A Dream Within a Dream to illustrate the elements of life and death.
First, Edgar Allen Poe uses alliteration to enhance his ideas of life and death. Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of closely connected words. In the first stanza, Poe writes, “You are not wrong, who deem. That my days have been a dream” (Poe 1). The words deem, days, and dream are an example of alliteration. After the passing of the love of his life, Poe explains how his life has become more of a dream, meaning unreal. Another example of alliteration includes, “While I weep--while I weep!” (Poe 2). While that phrase is alliteration is also falls under the category of repetition. The phrase is used to show Poe’s sadness through the death of the love of his life. Even though, alliteration isn’t one of the strongest poetic devices to use, it helps add more emphasis on certain parts of the poem. In addition to including alliteration in his poems, Poe used symbolization.
Symbolization is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense. To begin with, one symbol used is “a dream”. “A dream” is used to show something inaccessible. Which then makes it more attractive and wanted. In Poe’s case he uses it to describe the days he had with the love of his life. They seem like they were a dream because of how good they were. Now that his lover is dead, the days they spent together are impossible to get back. Another symbol used by Poe is, “Grains of golden sand” which are used to show the days of our lives. Poe wanted to show how valuable the days of our lives are. And that we shouldn’t take them for granted because any moment we, or a loved a one could die. Lastly, Poe used the symbol “kiss” to symbolize the last kiss given to someone of a death bed. Poe’s lover passed away fairly young, which made their last kiss even more memorable yet upsetting for Poe. Edgar Allen Poe used both alliteration and symbolism, while also using metaphors to further strengthen his writing.
Metaphors are comparisons between two unlike things without using like or as.

One example of a metaphor in “A Dream Within a Dream”, is “a shore and wave” which symbolize forces of life. In addition,the following part of stanza two is another example of a metaphor, “Grains of the golden sand-- How few! yet how they creep. Through my fingers to the deep” (Poe 2). Poe compares the grains of golden sand that creep though fingers to the beautiful days that flew by, but wishes he could keep forever. Lastly, he uses the following phrase, “And I hold within my hand, Grains of the golden sand--”(Poe 2) to show how sad he is. After reading those two lines, the reader can imagine how sad a man is after losing his lover. And seeing that man stand there broken down, and left with only memories of his lover

forever.
Edgar Allen Poe’s life has been filled with death and sadness.

In “A dream within a dream” he writes about the death of his lover and how his life was effected, his reactions, and he tries to deal with it. He talks about how it all became so unreal to him and how it was difficult to get a grasp on what was going on. He talks about the grief he faced after the loss of his lover. Since Poe also lost his mother really young, he has a special appreciation for life. He believes that life is something special and that it shouldn’t be taken for granted because at any moment, everything can change. Life is a dream and death is an awakening. Poe finds that life is happier and more unreal when looking back on it after a death. A death awakens us. In order to convey these ideas, Edgar Allen Poe uses alliteration, symbolism, and metaphors. He believes that people who are lucky, will be remembered even after they have passed

away.