Scepticism In Edgar Allan Poe's Poetry Essay

INTRODUCTION

Scepticism is any questioning or doubting attitude towards the ideas and beliefs of the society, which may or may not be based on facts. And although Edgar Allan Poe was one of the most famous and important pioneers of gothic-themed dark romantic literature, he did venture into different subject genres in a number of his works, most notably his 1849 poem, “A Dream Within a Dream”, which in spite of still sounding darkly mysterious, typical of Poe, it does embrace philosophical scepticism and borderline nihilism.

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, belonging to the period of American Romanticism. He wrote novels, short stories, poems, literary journals and even plays – being widely read in all these forms till today. His work,

Yet its words, when combine into lines, project the deepest of meanings – the meaning of life and existence, doubt in reality, time and its brevity. The afterimage in a reader’s mind is almost always dark and melancholy, leading to a state of isolation and thoughtfulness, which is exactly what the poet seems to be in when he wrote the poem. Now, before we get to critically analysing the theme of scepticism in the poem, it is of acute importance that we understand the poem’s technical

The poem has been composed in such a way that it ultimately has to lead to the already well-mentioned open question, “Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” in the final couplet, letting the thoughts of a reader linger on over it for a while after its end. The subthemes of nihilism, existentialism, denialism, etc. which are very closely related to scepticism, also happen to throw in a taste throughout the length of the