UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO PARÁ FACULDADE DE LETRAS ESTRANGEIRAS MODERNAS LICENCIATURA EM LETRAS COM HABILITAÇÃO EM LÍNGUA INGLESA POESIA ANGLÓFONA Prof. Rosamaria Reo Student Maurício Coelho
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830 – 1886) Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was educated at Amherst Academy (now Amherst College), founded by her grandfather Samuel Dickinson, for seven years and then attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a year. Her parents had three children: William Austin, Lavinia Norcross and middle child Emily. Though the precise reasons for Dickinson's final departure from the academy in 1848 are unknown; theories offered say that her fragile emotional state may have played a role and/or that her father decided to pull her from the school. The Dickinson family lived on a large home known as the Homestead in Amherst. Emily Dickinson was very loner and this has been the object of much speculation. Scholars have thought that she suffered from conditions such as agoraphobia, depression and/or anxiety, or may have been sequestered due to her responsibilities as guardian of her sick mother. Dickinson was also treated for a painful ailment of her eyes. After the mid-1860s, she rarely left the confines of the Homestead. In her spare time, Dickinson studied botany and produced a vast herbarium. She died of kidney disease in Amherst, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1886, at the age of 55. She was laid to rest in her family plot at West Cemetery. The Homestead, where Dickinson was born, is now a museum. Although Emily Dickinson's calling as a poet began in her teen years, she came into her own as an artist during a short but intense period of creativity that resulted in her composing, revising, and saving hundreds of poems. That period, which scholars identify as 1858-1865, overlaps with the most significant event of American nineteenth-century history, the Civil War. During this time, Dickinson's personal life also underwent tremendous change. Some of her influences were Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Blake, and John Keats. She wrote more than 1100 poems but only a few poems were published in newspapers, printed anonymously and apparently without her prior consent. A full compilation, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, wasn't published until 1955.
Success is counted sweetest (1864) Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of victory As he defeated – dying – On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear!
Glossary: Burst: resound Counted: seems Host: army
Ne’er: never Sorest: greatest Strains: notes of a song
Commentaries: The first lines defines what the poet want to express, so, we are able to see the theme in this first stanza, which is that the person who best understands the meaning of success is the person who fails (“By those who ne’er succeed”). The speaker continues saying that to really understand success one must want or desire it (“To comprehend a nectar/ Requires sorest need”), because to appreciate something one has to miss it. To illustrated what has been said the poet give an example in the second stanza: even “the purple Host” who won the battle (“took the Flag”) “can tell the definition/ so clear of victory”. Purple is the color of the royalty/ wealthy so we can infer that this army is privileged, they don’t know what poverty is, for example, therefore they will not appreciated the good things (“victory”). The last stanza comes to complete the second one showing that the “defeated” and “dying” soldier can understand it (“The distant strains of triumph/ Burst agonized and clear!”) but he are not allow to feel it (“On whose forbidden ear”).
References BIOGRAPHY. Emily Dickinson Biography.com. Available https://www.biography.com/people/emily-dickinson-9274190> Access on: 26.nov.2017
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EMILY DICKINSON MUSEUM. Emily Dickinson: The Writing Years (1855-1865). Available at: < https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/writing_years>. Access on: 26.nov.2017
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