Emily Dickinson once stated “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?” (Emily Dickinson Museum) She produced some eighteen hundred poems and letter, but very few were published before her death. She was described as an introvert and solitary sharing her work with only family and a few closes friends. (PoemHunter) Many of Dickinson’s works had themes of that examined pain, grief, mortality, loss, and art. “Success is counted sweetest” is iambic meter and uses ABCB scheme. This poem is about soldiers have seen victory from two different sides of a battle the victorious and the ones who lost. The lines of the poem “Success is counted sweetest/ By those who ne 'er succeed. / To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need.”(PoemHunter) suggest that it is the ones who do not win that can truly see the victory because they understand in better because of their defeat. …show more content…
Her work tended to reflected on the losses that she had experienced in her life. This is very relatable poem for most because after a great pain like the loss of a loved one an almost unknown feeling takes place to the point you do not known how to feel. “The Feet, mechanical, go round” (PoemHunter) suggest that you become also most robotic just going through the motions of everything; anyone who has suffered a great loss should be able to relate to this feeling of having to go on, but no idea how to accomplish going on with your life. This poem used stanza that did not follow the usual ABCB scheme and even had five line instead of four in one of the
The poem explains her hardships. Reading poetry is different from reading prose because you really have to dig deeper and study harder. A poem is not always straight forward like many other writings. You have to use context clues and understand imagery, tone, and sense. Summarizing a poem becomes difficult if you do not re-read several times. I learned that figurative language and lifestyle really tells a great story. Language especially helps you understand what is going on between the lines. Overall, family is always there at the end of the day. Sometimes situations get tough, but there is always a light at the end of the
Dickinson has put emotion into this poem; by using words that intrigue the emotions of the viewer’s such as a simple word like “death”. Personification was also used very well in this poem. Dickinson says “Because I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me” which perceives death as an animate object such as a
Emily Dickinson is a well-known poet known for her unique poems. Some famous works of hers include: I taste
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young child, she showed a bright intelligence, and was able to create many recognizable writings. Many close friends and relatives in Emily’s life were taken away from her by death. Living a life of simplicity and aloofness, she wrote poetry of great power: questioning the nature of immortality and death. Although her work was influenced by great poets of the time, she published many strong poems herself. Two of Emily Dickinson’s famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died”, are both about life’s one few certainties, death, and that is where the similarities end.
Dickinson's poetry is both thought provoking and shocking. This poem communicates many things about Dickinson, such as her cynical outlook on God, and her obsession with death. It is puzzling to me why a young lady such as Emily Dickinson would be so melancholy, since she seemed to have such a good life. Perhaps she just revealed in her poetry that dark side that most people try to keep hidden.
states that the one who has died for his country is the one who really values the win. In “VIII”, it is stated that “mirth is the mail of anguish” which appears to contradictory. However, in Dickinson’s poem, it is used as an ironic statement to prove that people go to extreme lengths to hide their pain. Along with irony, both poems contain a paradox. In “I”, it is “success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.” In “VIII” it is “the ecstacy of death.” Both poems also repeat the same idea in a number of ways.
Poetry is defined as literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm whether collectively or as a genre of literature. I chose to do all three poems by the one of our four great American poets, Emily Dickinson. The poems I have chosen to are, “Because I could not stop for death”, “Success is counted sweetest”, and “Triumph may be of several kinds”. The theme of each individual poem and its true interpreted meaning will be the focus of this paper.
She is suggesting that winners cannot value their victory. The final stanza emphasizes the fact that the defeated group understands the meaning of victory when she says that "The distant strains of triumph/ Burst agonized and clear!" Dickinson describes the dying soldiers comprehending the meaning of winning the battle in a way that the victors never will. The reason that the winners can't understand the significance of their victory is that they did not taste defeat. The loss of a battle demonstrates to the unsuccessful how far they are from feeling the exuberation of success. Poem 67, as in line with Dickinson's theme of loss, suggests that being in a losing state, at least sometimes, is better than winning all the time. The deflated feeling of being unsuccessful increases the state of appreciation one has for winning.
In the poem “Success is Counted Sweetest” the speaker states that “those who ne’er succeed” (2) place the highest value on success they “count” it “sweetest”. In order to understand the richness of this, the speaker states one must feel “sorest need.” (4). Dickinson states that the members of the victorious army “The purple host/Who took the flag today” (5-6) are not able to label victory as well as the defeated or dying man who hears from a distance the music of the victors. People tend to desire things more intensely when they do not have them. This poem goes to show that Dickinson is pretty aware of the complicated truths of human desire. Dickinson switches roles and speaks on behalf of the dying man, who hears the victorious celebrating. To the dying man, defeat meant that he had lost everything.
Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest woman poets. She left us with numerous works that show us her secluded world. Like other major artists of nineteenth-century American introspection such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville, Dickinson makes poetic use of her vacillations between doubt and faith. The style of her first efforts was fairly conventional, but after years of practice she began to give room for experiments. Often written in the meter of hymns, her poems dealt not only with issues of death, faith and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power and limits of language.
Emily Dickinson was a brilliant American poet, and an obsessively private writer. During her lifetime, only seven of her eighteen hundred poems were published. Dickinson withdrew from social contact at the age of twenty three and devoted herself to her secret poetry writing.
Emily Dickinson, who achieved more fame after her death, is said to be one of the greatest American poets of all time. Dickinson communicated through letters and notes and according to Amy Paulson Herstek, author of “Emily Dickinson: Solitary and Celebrated Poet,” “Writing was the way she kept in touch with the world” (15). Dickinson’s style is unique and although unconventional, it led to extraordinary works of literature. Dickinson lived her life in solitude, but in her solitude she was free to read, write and think which led to her nonconformity and strong sense of individualism. Suzanne Juhasz, a biographer of Dickinson, sums up most critics’ idea of Dickinson ideally: “Emily Dickinson is at once the most intimate of poets, and the most guarded. The most self-sufficient, and the neediest. The proudest, and the most vulnerable. These contradictions, which we as her readers encounter repeatedly in her poems, are understandable, not paradoxical, for they result from the tension between the life to which she was born and the one to which she aspired” (1). Dickinson poured her heart and soul into over 1,700
The poem "Success" has three stanza, each with four lines in it. The pattern within the poem helps it flow well together; it also uses the rhyme scheme ABCB in the stanzas. This makes it so that the second and fourth line in each stanza makes a rhythmic tone. Throughout the poem, Dickinson uses imagery, metaphors, and colors to show the theme that those who believe success is everything in life are the ones who never succeed. In the poem losers understand the meaning of winning more than those who are victorious.
Emily Dickinson was an unrecognized poet her whole life. Her close family members recognized her talent, and her needs to write poetry, but the literary establishment of her time would not recognize her skill. Even though she was unrecognized, she was still quietly battling the established views through her poetry. Her literary struggle was exposed after her death since, while living, only five of her poems were published.
It points out that death is inevitable and sadness overcomes us and wants to take over, making our lives take drastic shifts. And even though we fall we can always get back up by being strong and courageous. This poem also contains a rhyming pattern of ABCB that gives the poem a sort of bounce and happiness to it even though it talks about dark topics. The reason why I loved this poem was because it made me think but i could still understand what the writer was trying to put across. I also connected to the poem in every stanza and got to connect it to my experiences.