10
Score: 0
Attempted: 0/10
Subscribe
“Success is counted sweetest – Summary”
Emily Dickinson’s short but powerful poem “Success is counted sweetest” explores the idea that those who never achieve success are the ones who understand its value most deeply. The poem opens with the paradox that success is best appreciated not by those who win, but by those who fail.
Dickinson uses the metaphor of “nectar” to symbolize success—suggesting that the taste of victory is sweetest to someone who has never had it. The poem contrasts a victorious army (“the purple Host”) with a dying soldier on the defeated side, who, although he has never tasted success himself, can hear the celebration of triumph from afar and truly grasps what it means.