Cummings Study Guide

.......Emily Dickinson's "Success Is Counted Sweetest" is a three-stanza lyric poem written in 1859. Author Helen Hunt Jackson, with whom Dickinson corresponded, published the poem in 1878 in a collection, A Masque of Poets.
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Point of View and Tone

.......The poem uses third-person point of view, in which the speaker (narrator) observes a battle and concludes that only the defeated warrior, hearing the enemy's noisy victory celebration, completely understands success. The tone is unemotional and impersonal; the speaker is reporting and interpreting what she sees but refrains from expressing sympathy or compassion.

Themes

Only failures fully understand the meaning of success. Dickinson announces this theme in the first two lines: "Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne'er succeed."
Appreciating a boon requires privation. For example, a poor man who wins the lottery better appreciates his windfall than a millionaire executive who receives a six-figure bonus. The poet enunciates this theme when she says, "To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need."

Meter

.......The meter consists of iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter. Some of the lines contain a catalectic (incomplete) foot. Here is how the first five lines appear when broken into metric feet.

.......1..................2...................3...........
By THOSE..|..who NE'ER..|..suc CEED...............................................................iambic trimeter

......1................2...............3.........4 (incomplete foot)
To COM..|..pre HEND..|..a NEC..|..tar..................................................................iambic tetrameter

.....1..............2...............3...........
Re QUI..|..res.SOR.|..est NEED....Note: "Requires" is pronounced as three syllables..............iambic trimeter

.......The rhyme scheme is abcb—that is, in each stanza the last syllable of the second line rhymes with the last syllable of the fourth line.
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Figures of Speech

.......Paradox is the controlling figure of speech in the poem. It expresses the main theme: The person best qualified to evaluate the impact of success is the vanquished rather than the triumphant. Implicit in this paradoxical observation is that it can apply to anyone: the failed author, the defeated boxer, the election loser, the rejected job applicant, the bankrupt businessman.
.......Following are examples of figures of speech in the poem. For definitions of figures of speech, see Literary Terms.

Alliteration

Not one of all the purple.Host
Who took the Flag today (lines 5-6)

As he defeated—dying— (line 9)

1. Write a short account about an incident from your own life that demonstrated the truth of "To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need."
2. Is it possible to fail in victory and succeed in defeat?
3. People measure success by the money they make, the power they wield, the admiration they receive, the satisfaction they derive from performing a task, and so on. Write an essay that explains your definition of success. Use plenty of examples to make your point.
4. Comment on the effect of the word distant in the last stanza.
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