16 pages • 32 minutes read
Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The speaker of Dickinson’s poem begins with what seems like an unarguable truth: that success is “sweetest” (Line 1) to the unsuccessful. The use of the third person makes the speaker sound removed from the issue at hand, as though they are simply relating factual information to the reader of the poem. However, the significance of this matter-of-fact tone deepens in the second line as the speaker asserts that those who appreciate success the most are individuals “who ne’er succeed” (Line 2). The predictable association assumes that those who succeed are most appreciative of success; yet, the second line contradicts this idea, claiming that those who never taste success are the ones who can appreciate it the most.
The second half of the first stanza illustrates this point further with the use of a metaphor. The speaker parallels success with “nectar” (Line 3). Nectar is a sweet substance, one that only the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus can enjoy; like nectar, success is accessible only to a select few. The inaccessibility of the metaphorical nectar of the poem is linked with the emotional sweetness of success, a feeling that only those who have “sorest need” (Line 4) can “comprehend” (Line 3).
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson