
	Dream-land is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s self-proclaimed better poems. In “Dream-Land” Poe uses the term “Thulé” in lines 6 and 56 which Mabbott traces back to Virgil. Virgil used the term in reference to an island north of Britain which the Greeks considered the edge of the known world. It is certain that Virgil did use the term however there is a more current source to which some credit must be given. Poe was very interested in German authors. 
This quote is important because it shows Poe’s familiarity with Gothe’s writing. Karl J. Arndt, in his book Poe’s Politian and Goethe’s Mignon, comments on the similarity of their two poems drawing the conclusion that Poe was imitating Goethe. 
	Oxford Companion to English Literature says of Gothe was a celebrated writer of the poetic drama Faust which was published in two parts the first in 1808 and the second in the year of Gothe’s death 1832. Within the poetic verse of Faust’s second part lies a short poem titled “The King of Thulé”.  The poem is about a king whose wife dies after she gives him the gift of a goblet. After his wife passes he begins drinking heavily and crying from the memory of his dead queen. He then decides it is his time to die and gives his possessions to his children save for the goblet. He then walks to a cliff, throws the goblet into the ocean, closes his eyes, and dies. The demeanor of the King of Thule and the description of the king in Dream-Land are very similar, maybe a dark doppelganger of Poe’s loss and crutch of drinking. Faust was also composed into a romantic drama by H P Grattan in 1842, which was less than one year prior to Poe’s use of the term Thule in “The Pit and the Pendulum”. 
	Poe references Thule twice in his collected writings. Once Poe references “ultma Thule” in The Pit and the Pendulum but he uses this phrase in “Dream-Land” twice, as book ends for the poem. “The King of Thule” and “Dream-Land” can be read as companion pieces. In “Dream-Land” the speaker says. He then describes the landscape of Thule and how it is dark, lonely, he is haunted by dead friends, and he sees a shaded world without color. All of these scenes would be read into “The King of Thule” by Gothe as he has just lost his wife, he is lonely, and he has lost his will to rule or even live. The entire poem is a description as though the speaker has stepped into Goethe’s poem. 
	Gothe was a significant author who Poe would have known if for no other reason then his respect for Tennyson. Poe had this to say when asked if he admired Tennyson. Aside from the connection to Tennyson Poe would have been exposed to Gothe’s work in the many reproductions that were taking place after the original publication. 