SOURCE: "Poe in Clavell's Shōgun: A Novel of Japan," in Poe Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, June, 1983, p. 13.

In the essay below, Pollin cites thematic and stylistic similarities between Edgar Allan Poe's 1849 poem entitled "A Dream within a Dream" and Clavell's Shōgun.

Poe did not originate the title phrase of his 1849 poem, "A Dream within a Dream"; as T. O. Mabbott indicates [in Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, 3 vols., 1969–1978], it had previously appeared in two works known to Poe, Margaret Fuller's Summer on the Lakes (1844) and C. A. Washburn's sentimental story in Graham's Magazine (October 1848). But surely, the currency of the phrase is entirely owed to Poe's poem. And we can be certain that James Clavell was borrowing from Poe in his threefold use of the phrase in Shōgun: A Novel of Japan, a best selling work that has become a major document in popular American...