Success is counted sweetest

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!

NOTES:

ne’er – never comprehend – here: fully appreciate

nectar – here: Dickinson uses the word to represent something sweet and desirable

purple Host – winning army

COMPREHENSION AND DISCUSSION:

1. What do you think of the first two lines of the poem?

2. How do you interpret lines 3-4?

3. In this poem Dickinson uses the image of a battlefield to make her point. Why might the defeated soldier be better able to define and appreciate victory than the victorious soldiers?

4. Do you agree that a defeated person appreciates success more than a victor does? Why?

5. Where do you think the speaker places herself in this poem? What is the tone of the poem?

Writing option:

Write a letter to Emily Dickinson telling her what you think of her poetry.

Francis bret harte

(1836 – 1902)

Francis Bret Harte is a short story writer and poet of the gold-ruch period in America, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. He wrote some thirty volumes of prose and one book of verse, but only a small part of his writing has real literary value.

He was born in Albany, New York, in the family of a teacher. His father died when the boy was nine. In 1854 Harte left New York for California and went into mining country on a brief trip that legend has expanded into a lengthy participation in, and intimate knowledge of, camp life. In 1857 he was employed by the “Northern Californian”, a weekly paper.

In about 1860 he moved to San Francisco and began to write for the “Golden Era”, which published the first of his “Condensed Novels”, brilliant parodies of James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo and others. In 1864 he edited the periodical “The Californian”, for which he engaged Mark Twain to write weekly articles. The same year Harte received the post of Secretary of the California Mint where coins were made under State authority.

In 1867 Bret Harte published a volume of verse. In 1868 he began publishing his own magazine “Overland Monthly”, in which during two years his first stories appeared. These stories were later collected into the book “THE LUCK OF THE ROARING CAMP”¹ (1870). In 1871 Bret Harte went to Boston and later settled in New York. Everywhere he had an enthusiastic reception. As an established literary figure, Bret Harte was appointed to the position of United States Consul in the town of Krefeld, Germany in 1878 and Glasgow in 1880. In 1885 he settled in London. During the thirty years he spent in Europe, he never abandoned writing. He died in England in 1902 and is buried at Frimley.

The three stories “Waif of the Plains” (1891), “Suzy” (1893), “Clarence” (1895) form a trilogy, in the centre of which is a history of the main hero of these books - Clarence Brant. The historical background of the trilogy is Civil War between the North and the South.

In the story “The Luck of the Roaring Camp” Bret Harte describes the gold-seekers in California, but he doesn’t give a complete picture of the brutal fight for gold among the gold-seekers who looked upon one another as mortal enemies. He was, however, realistic enough to give a tragic ending to his story, because there was no place for love and kindness under the brutal conditions of the gold rush.

Read the whole story and explain its title. Use a dictionary where necessary.