I have to write a term paper on this, so any info would help. I will use poems such as "Dreamland," "Dream Within a Dream," and "The Narrative of Pym." Any help would help a lot.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2001

Answers

Dreaming is an ambiguous borderland for Poe that MIGHT be a glimpse beyond life or a delving into the fanciful subconscious. In other words a vision or journey of imagination. Like other Romantics he deliberately intensifies the experience to try to increase the intensity and possibilities of both, to reach out to new ways of seeing, to memory, to ideal Beauty and the eternal. The poems have various apporaches, some pessimistic, some full of hopeful visions. The Pym book has one of those many afflicted characters common to Poe and other Romantic writers. Pym has that melancholic, daydreaming temperament and enters more than one fugue-like state in which the shock of some unusual event first has a fantastic interpretation then a revelation of the real event.(the wreck of the Ariel and the shout of the Penguin's crew, the fume delusions while stowed away on the Grampus, the volcanic fume delusions at the Pole before the final inexplicable vision of the figure in white- where the book ends before the real explanation is given).

My observation on Pym of course is that that last neat split between the trance state and the missing real revelation was to form part of some sequel spoiled by the book's commercial failure and the delay and shortcomings of the South Seas Polar Expedition which Poe was depending upon to connect the real climax of the story. And Poe had a passion to find the scientific reason, the discovery beyond mere wonder. For him dreaming could be no more the pivotal point from which, nonetheless, the power of the new emotion or discovery was the keenest aspect of art, the Promethean fire, the desire and despair.

There is an interesting article at www.eapoe.org which alas can only be attributed to Poe but seems to explain some of his theory on the varu=ious states of consciousness. I believe it is an essay called "On Dreaming" which I think seems a bit different and too clear cut from Poe's other treatments. Interesting though.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001

Dreaming is an ambiguous borderland for Poe that MIGHT be a glimpse beyond life or a delving into the fanciful subconscious. In other words a vision or journey of imagination. Like other Romantics he deliberately intensifies the experience to try to increase the intensity and possibilities of both, to reach out to new ways of seeing, to memory, to ideal Beauty and the eternal. The poems have various apporaches, some pessimistic, some full of hopeful visions. The Pym book has one of those many afflicted characters common to Poe and other Romantic writers. Pym has that melancholic, daydreaming temperament and enters more than one fugue-like state in which the shock of some unusual event first has a fantastic interpretation then a revelation of the real event.(the wreck of the Ariel and the shout of the Penguin's crew, the fume delusions while stowed away on the Grampus, the volcanic fume delusions at the Pole before the final inexplicable vision of the figure in white- where the book ends before the real explanation is given).

My observation on Pym of course is that that last neat split between the trance state and the missing real revelation was to form part of some sequel spoiled by the book's commercial failure and the delay and shortcomings of the South Seas Polar Expedition which Poe was depending upon to connect the real climax of the story. And Poe had a passion to find the scientific reason, the discovery beyond mere wonder. For him dreaming could be no more the pivotal point from which, nonetheless, the power of the new emotion or discovery was the keenest aspect of art, the Promethean fire, the desire and despair.

There is an interesting article at www.eapoe.org which alas can only be attributed to Poe but seems to explain some of his theory on the varuious states of consciousness. I believe it is an essay called "On Dreaming" which I think seems a bit different and too clear cut from Poe's other treatments. Interesting though.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001