Can you help me find the literary elements used and how?

Question

Success Is Counted Sweetest
Poem lyrics of Success Is Counted Sweetest by Emily Dickinson.
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!


also in:

Hope” is the thing with feathers—
BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird—
That kept so many warm—

I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Answer 1

Is this a homework assignment you are suppose to finish? It sounds like homework I would give to my students. My suggestion is to visit Emily Dickinson's website and really delve in how she wrote her poetry and the interpretation of her words. As far as literary elements.. check out a website that has examples of each and then compare or contrast them to the poems you mentioned... not only would you be asking others to help you, but you will learn in the process.

Answer 2

Homework again, huh? Okay, here it is:

Poem 1: When you read the first two lines, what do you hear? Listen to your voice...do you hear the repeating "sssss"? This is called "sibilant alliteration". "Seven swallows singing sweetly" has the same "sibilant" (s or sh) sound (no pun intended). There's the conjunction of "never" to "ne'er", which reduces the word to a single beat (rather than two syllables). There is thesis-antithesis in "nectar" and "need" and "success is counted...those who never succeed". And "defeated-dying", creation of a metaphor in a new word combination. The defeated is not truly "dying"...they just feel that way because they were defeated.

The poem itself is not as morbid as some may think, because it is not a "real" battlefield she's talking about, it's a tournament, where the "purple host" is the winner and the defeated, or "unhorsed" fallen lives to hear the cries of victory by their opponent. The ear is "forbidden" because they should not have to hear the cries of their victors, but they can't help it. The point here is that the one who truly knows how dear the price of victory is not the one who won, but the one who did not achieve it..."the one who never succeeds".

In the second poem, "Hope" is a transmuted by using a metaphor that turns an intangible concept into a "bird"...the "bird" is the metaphor for hope. The rest of the poem simply uses this image in each stanza to continue the initial metaphor and the turn at the end shows that although it gives, it never asks anything in return.

Both poems have rhymed structures, and although your post did not show the stanza splits of the first poem, the original poem did indeed have split stanzas.

Hope this gives you a head-start...now go finish your homework.