Success is Counted Sweetest Summary, Themes, & Analysis

Read below our complete notes on the poem “Success is Counted Sweetest” by Emily Dickinson. Our notes cover Success is Counted Sweetest summary, themes, and analysis.

The poem “Success is counted sweetest” is written by an American Poet Emily Dickinson. She wrote eighteen hundred poems in total but only seven of them were published during her life. “Success is counted sweetest” is one of those seven poems which were published during her lifetime.

The poem “Success is counted sweetest” was written in 1859. It was first published anonymously in the Brooklyn Daily Unit, on 27 April 1864. It was republished in 1878, with the title “Success” in the anthology “A Masque of Poets” as part of a series of books published without writers’ names.

The poem is written about the significance of success. It explains its theme by providing an image of a battlefield. It has three quatrains. The first stanza can stand alone because it carries a compact idea. It is independent of the other two stanzas while the third and fourth stanzas depend on one another for complete understanding.

The stanzas are written in “iambic trimeter” except for the first two lines of the second stanza which are written in “iambic tetrameter”.

The poem “Success is counted sweetest” begins with speaking about the importance of success. It says that success is more valued by those who have never achieved it in their lives. Those who are a failure in their lives know the real significance of success and the true happiness of achieving it. It then says that to understand the sweetness of nectar, there should be an aching lack and one should be really in need of it because to know the actual value of something, the want for it should be strong. It means that something is more desirable to those who do not have it. They can understand the true worth of achieving something when they have been longing for it.

The second stanza speaks about the victorious army on a battlefield. It says that those who have won the battle and have got the flag of victory, though they celebrate and enjoy their victory, they cannot define victory so well because the value of success cannot be defined by those who have never experienced failure. So those who are victorious, they have achieved victory but they do not understand its significance. They are the winners but cannot truly appreciate their victory because it seems normal to them and they cannot understand the sweetness of it anymore. They have got it and after that, it has lost its meaning for them.

The third stanza says that the cheers and cries of the victorious soldiers celebrating their victory are reaching the ears of a dying soldier, on the defeated side. He hears the victorious soldiers celebrating their victory, though he is defeated, he actually knows the real value of victory because he is going through the pain and agony and knows how significant and sweet the victory is. Though a loser, he understands the value of victory more than the celebrating winners.

The point here is that a failed person knows the true worth of victory more than a victorious one because he knows the pain of failure. A loser appreciates triumph more than the one who has achieved it. One must go through the pain of failure in order to fully understand the value of victory. The soldier has failed and experienced loss, yet he knows and appreciates victory and its significance more than the victorious soldiers because he had desired it.

The main point in the poem is about positivity related to the failure. It motivates a failed person to achieve and appreciate success. A person who fails knows the true value of success. When a person achieves success after experiencing failure, he feels the true happiness of achieving it. This is the positivity related to failure, it makes you appreciate your blessings.

The poem says that the true worth of success is known to those who fail. Achieving success without experiencing failure is a shallow success. The true happiness and joy of achieving success can only be understood when one goes through all the pain in the process of achieving success. The sweetness of success can only be tasted when a person has already been through the bitterness of failure.

The poem also highlights the theme of need or lack. It says that when someone needs something, he has a great desire to get it and he knows the sweetness of getting it. The intensity of appreciation depends on the passion and want of that particular thing. The person who does not have that thing and wants it knows the true happiness of achieving that thing. To taste the sweetness of achieving something, there should be an aching need for it. It all depends on how hard a person wants something. 

The poem “Success is counted sweetest” is a short “Definition Poem” that defines success and beautifully illustrates its importance. A great theme is explained in a small number of words. Though very precise, the poem is a compact one and carries great meaning. It conveys a complicated moral lesson and talks about human desire and his psychological truth. In the beginning, a general idea of success and its importance is given. Then the poem is confined to a battlefield, to give an example of the importance of success but this concept of winning and losing is not confined to a battlefield field only, it can be applied to any situation of success and failure.

It says that success is something that is considered valuable by those who have never achieved it. Those who have always failed in achieving success know its true worth because the value of something is known to those who are unable to have it. People who are a failure in their lives know how significant success is and for them, it is the sweetest.

It is said that those who are in need of something and do not have it, truly know its value rather than those who have it. Here the human desire for something is highlighted and success is compared to nectar. It says that to understand the sweetness of nectar, one should be in need of it. The sweetness and joy of achieving something depend on how deep is the passion and want. Those who do not have something and they want it, they truly know the joy of having it. It is human nature that when we do not have something and we want it. It means a lot to us. We value it more as compared to those who already have it.

The third and fourth stanzas, which are interdependent, paradoxically talk about the victorious on the battlefield who do not understand the true importance of success because they have not tasted the pain of failure. Their victory is shallow because they have not experienced the process of losing something. The victory has cost them nothing. They have achieved it by getting no pain but to understand the pain and agony, in order to achieve success, one needs to experience failure. While the dying soldier on the defeated side knows the true worth of victory when he hears the victorious soldiers celebrating their victory. He does know the significance of victory because he is the one who experiences failure. He knows what it cost to achieve success. He understands the importance of winning and knows the pain of losing a battle.

The poem “Success is counted sweetest” is set in a battlefield where the army on one side has won the battle while the other side has lost it.

The tone of the poem “Success is counted sweetest” is impersonal and unemotional. The narrator narrates what is going on in the battlefield without showing any sympathy with the defeated army.

The point of view in the poem “Success is counted sweetest” is a third-period narrative. The narrator narrates what he observes, without participating in it. He observes a battlefield in which one army has won the battle and its soldiers are celebrating while the other army has lost the battle. 

“Nectar” in the third line of the poem symbolizes success. It says that to understand the sweetness of a nectar, one should lack it and when someone needs something, one wants it. The sweetness of getting it depends on the degree of want. It means to understand the meaning of success, one should experience failure and after that one will be able to define the true value of success.

In the fifth line of the poem the “Purple Host” symbolizes the victorious army. In the battlefield one army loses the battle and the other wins it. The victorious army gets the flag of victory after winning the battle. Though they win the battle and celebrate it, according to the narrator, they do not really understand the true meaning of victory.

It is the use of a witty saying in a literary piece of writing.

The poem is a compact and witty one which has conveyed a great message in little words. It says that the importance of success is known only to those who have never achieved it. It highlights the benefit of failure that those who experience failure in fact know the true worth of success, more than those who achieve success.

The poet has used imagery in the poem and an image of the battlefield is created in the mind of the reader.

The reader can imagine a victorious army in the battlefield, who has won the battle, having the flag of victory and a dying soldier on the defeated side.

Metaphor used in the poem is “nectar”.

The first stanza of the poem says that:

“Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need”

It is used to symbolize success. The sweetness of a nectar is compared to the sweetness of achieving success.

It is the omission of letters from within a word.

“Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed”

Here the example of syncope is “ne’er” where the letter ‘v’ is omitted from the original word never.

It is the continuation of a statement beyond the line break, to the next line.

“Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed”

Here the sense of the first line is continued in the next one. The second line completes the meaning of the first one. Success is more valued by those who are failures in their lives and have never achieved success.

The first two lines of the first stanza is the example of a paradox.

“Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed”

This is a self-contradictory statement. It says that the significance of success is understood only by those who fail. The person who knows the true value of success is a loser rather than a triumphant. Here two contradictory things are said. “Success” and “failure” are two opposite concepts.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of victory

In the above lines, the ‘H’ of host and the ‘F’ of flag are capitalized to emphasize the concept which the poet wants to convey. Here this point is emphasized that though the purple Host (victorious army) has got the Flag of victory but they cannot tell the definition of success.

It is the repetition of the same initial sounds in closely connected words.

It is the repetition of a similar sound in the middle or end of the connected words.

It is the repetition of the same vowel sounds in connected words.

The poem consists of meters, iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter.

In each stanza of the poem, the last syllable in the second line rhymes with the last syllable of the fourth line so it makes the rhyme scheme “abcb”.