Thursday/ Friday, November 5/6 Poe's A Dream Within A Dream, questions and written response

Cutural connection:  Remember Remember the 5th of November

                                  Gunpowder, treason and plot

                                  I see no reason, why gunpowder treason

                                 Should ever be forgot                          

                             

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A Dream Within a Dream By Edgar Allen Poe 1849

prereading vocabulary: 1. to avow(verb) : to assert or confess openly

                                        2. to deem (verb) : to judge or consider in a specific way

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* Please remember that when reading a poem, you must follow the punctuation the way the author wrote it.  DO NOT SIMPLY READ LINE BY LINE. If there is no punctuation at the end of a line, YOU DO NOT STOP.  Punctuation is a reflection of timed breathing!

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;       5

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                 10.

 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 —   15.

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?    20.

O God! can I not save 

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem 

But a dream within a dream?

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Accompanying questions for A Dream Within a Dream

                                                    1.____________

                                          

                                                            2.______________

  

                                                     3.____________________

                                    

                                                     

                                                           

                                                       4.__________________

                                             

                                                                 5._________________

                                                 

     

                                                  6. __________________

                               

                                           

                                                    7. _______________

                                            

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Part II: Written response to A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

In the context of the poem, can we contol our fate? What does the narrator in the poem think about fate and life in general? Is this a valid perspective?  Cite evidence from the poem, your own experience or any other literature, art or history in your answer. This need only be 100 words!  Note the examples below of how to incorporate text into your response. 

1. Suggested start:  In Poe's poem A Dream Within  A Dream, he questions if we can control fate or our lives in general. 

2. What does Poe think? Find some evidence in the poem to support this. You may weave in a few words into a sentence or follow with a quote.

                       Here are examples:

                       Poe believes that life is nothing but "grains of the golden sand"(15) and everything he does in life slips away.

                        OR

                      Poe believes that everything in life passes awasy: "how they creep / Through my fingers to the deep" (16-17).

                       

 

3. Now give your personal response, BUT avoid using the words I think or I believe. Make a statement in the 3rd person point of view.  This may be several sentences, if you wish.