Why do I love Edgar Allan Poe's "Dream-Land"?

Not only do I love ”Dream-Land” but I am also fascinated with its author, Edgar Allan Poe. “Dream-Land” was first published in 1845 and depicts a dream of a traveler. In this dream the traveler has arrived to an uncertain location and is all by them self. The first thing that is seen are “ill angels” and a phantom named Night. As the traveler continues the journey he or she sees floods, caves, forests, falling mountains, rising bodies of water, and that the sky is on fire. After traveling some distance the traveler starts to see ghosts and ghouls that look like loved ones who have passed away. The traveler then becomes peaceful and happy because he or she feels like they belong in this dark and eerie dream. But just as dreams are the journey comes to an end and the traveler has found them self wandering home.

One thing I admire the most about “Dream-Land is how Poe is able to use the beginning of the poem at the end. Repetition is literary tool that Poe uses in a lot of his work including this poem. Most of the first stanza is repeated in the last stanza. “By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright,” Unlike the beginning of the poem though the traveler cannot reenter into this gloomy realm but instead goes home “I have wandered home but newly From this ultimate dim Thule.”

            However, the main reasons as to why this poem is so significant to me are the use of word choice and the imagery that Poe uses. For example in lines 9 and 10, “Bottomless vales and boundless floods and chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,” Poe uses the words bottomless, boundless, and titan to describe an infinite space in this dim and dark setting. My favorite example for imagery is lines 13 through 16. “Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire; Surging, unto skies of fire;” These lines create the image of a world in mass chaos where the mountains are falling into the seas and the bodies of water are continually rising up and then looking up to see the sky bursting with flames.