A Poem by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) A Study Guide | |||||||||||||||
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Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings...© 2003 Revised in 2010.© Type of Work and Year of Publication .......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.
.......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. 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."
.......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............4 (incomplete foot) ......1..............2..............3..............4Rhyme Scheme .......The
rhyme scheme is abcbthat is, in each stanza
the last syllable of the second line rhymes with the last syllable of the
fourth line.
.......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.
Alliteration Success is counted sweetest (line 1)Paradox Success is counted sweetestSyncope Ne'er (line 2) is an example of syncope (SINK uh pe), the omission of letters from the middle of a word.
Study Questions and Essay Topics 1. Write a short account
about an incident from your own life that demonstrated the truth of "To
comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need."
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