A Dream Within a Dream

Study Guide

Literary Devices

Structure

Save

Literary Devices Structure

“A Dream Within a Dream” is a lyric poem, meaning it traces the thoughts and feelings of a first-person speaker. It is this tracing of the speaker’s internal experience that establishes the poem’s overall structure, which proceeds from certainty to uncertainty. In the first stanza, despite the speaker’s hopelessness, they speak with a clear sense of certainty. They address an unnamed figure and make a convincing argument about the dreamlike nature of reality. Although their address includes a question, the question is rhetorical and merely sets up the following assertion: “All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream” (lines 10–11). The speaker’s rhetorical finesse gives credence to their argument, making it seem convincing and assured. However, the second stanza puts this apparent certainty into question. Now feeling thoroughly distraught, the speaker’s increased agitation is reflected in the quickened pace of the lines, which now have three beats instead of four. The speaker expresses their growing anxiety by rephrasing their earlier assertion as an agonizing query: “Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?” (lines 23–24). With this rhetorical question, the speaker undermines their previous sense of certainty.