Assignment One "Success"

Emily Dickinson (J67/Fr112 1859)

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!

1. “nectar” and “Victory” = overcome death formula (Watkins 12)
2. “Success” and “succeed” = polyptoton (shared nucleus Watkins 30)
3. “purple Host” = kenning for army or conquerors or angels of death
4. Eulogy = business of the Indo-European bard
5. Word repetition of the adverb “clear” (lines 6 and 9)
6. Contextual relations: Dickinson read Webster’s 1844 dictionary (ADEL), a mounument of the 19th century philological renaissance. In the second stanza, the lines about ‘clearly telling the definition of victory’ give a hint that this may be one of Dickinson’s lexicon poems. Webster’s definition of CLEAR is evidence that Dickinson probably used the 1844 dictionary in composing the poem. Dickinson has echoed a phrase from Milton found in definition nine:
CLEAR, a. . . . 9. Evident; undeniable; indisputable; as, the victory was clear. Milton . . . 16. Open; distinct; not jarring, or harsh; as, a clear sound; a clear voice.

Webster’s definition suggests a paraphrase: ‘Not one of all those who took the flag today can tell the defintion of victory so indisputably as he who is defeated and dying’. Definition sixteen shows the word play of the second occurrence of clear in the poem: ‘the distant strains burst in indisputable triumph’, and ‘the distant strains of triumph are distinct sounds, not harsh or jarring ones’.
Poem 67 has other connections in Webster’s 1841 dictionary. Success, victory, and triumph are synonyms. The definitions of Success, host, flag, victory, defeated, and triumph have military denotations. The words sweetest, clear, ear, strains, and Burst have denotations of music and sound. Success and defeated have complimentary senses. The verb requires and the noun need are near-synonyms. The word sweetest is supported in Webster’s definition for nectar: ‘any very sweet and pleasant drink’.

7. Reading Etymologies (Becker 55-58)
Webster shows that NECTAR is a Latin borrowing of a Greek word, but he does not give the primary sense of the Greek root in his etymology. However, adjacent entries show that the Greek root necros- has to do with ‘death’:
NECROLOGY, n. [Gr. nekros, dead, and logos, discourse.] An account of the dead . . .

NECRONITE, n. [Gr. nekros, dead.] Fetid feldspar . . .

NECTAR, n. [L. from the Greek.] In fabulous history and poetry, the drink of the gods; hence, 2. Any very sweet and pleasant drink.

A tie between dead and Nectar in Poem 230 makes it certain that Dickinson knew of the semantic connection from Webster’s entries or from her classical language studies: He and I . . . ‘found dead’ -- ‘of Nectar’.
Again, Watkin’s Indo-European (IE) roots can provide further insights. A study of the words nectar, need, and dying in Watkins’ AHDIER reveals relationships between the primary senses words that Webster did not document:
*nek-1 . Death. 6. Greek nektar, drink of the gods, overcomimg death: NECTAR.

*nau-1. Death, to be exhausted. 1. OE neod, ned, distress, necessity: NEED.

*dheu-3. To become exhausted, die. 3. Old Norse, deyja, to die: DIE.

The Greek word nektar means to overcome death, and the poem speaks of victory and triumph in spite of death. The IE roots of nectar, need, and dying all have senses of death, and both need and dying carry underlying etymological resonances of ‘exhaustion’. Webster did not tell Dickinson about such ties, but the words she chose to collocate have subtle historical affinities.
As Dickinson studied words in Webster’s dictionary, even so-called false etymologies became the source of cohesion and metaphor in her poems. Hans Aarslef reminds us that error may be as influential as truth in the science of etymology (Aarslef England 3), and a mistaken etymology may be just as powerful as an accurate one in the art of poetry (Becker 55-58). Such is the case with the words purple and dying in Poem 67. The entry for PURPLE in Webster’s 1844 dictionary includes the poetic sense of ‘dyed with blood’, and the etymology for DYING is cross-referenced to DIE, which cites ‘dye’ as its primary sense.
PURPLE, a. [Fr. pourpre; L. purpureus; . . . L. purpura, a shell from which the color was obtained.] 1. Designating a color composed of red and blue blended, much admired, and formerly the Roman emperors wore robes of this color. 2. In poetry, red or livid; dyed with blood.

DYING, ppr. [from die.] Losing life; perishing; expiring; fading away; languishing . . .

DIE, v.i. [Sw. do; . . . The word dye, to tinge, is contracted from Dg, and the Arabic root signifies not only to tinge, but to perish; . . . the primary sense is to plunge, fall or sink . . . See Dye.] 1. To be deprived of respiration, of the circulation of blood, and other bodily functions, and rendered incapable of resuscitation, as animals, either by natural decay, by disease, or by violence; to cease to live; to expire; to decease; to perish; and with respect to man, to depart from this world.

DYE, v.t. [Sax. deagan; L. tingo, for tigo; . . . The primary sense is to throw down, to dip, to plunge.] To stain; to color; to give a new and permanent color to . . .

Using the etymology of DYE, Dickinson contrasts the royal colors of the purple host with the blood-dyed robes of he defeated, dying. As noted above, the actual root of DYING and DIE is the Old Norse word deyja, ‘to die’, from the IE root *dheu-3, meaning ‘to become exhausted; die’, but Dickinson’s metaphor is not less effective for Webster’s error.
The Webster 1844 etymology of CLEAR does not support any specific lexical items in the poem, but Watkins 1995 American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots posits that CLEAR (from Latin clarus) is related to the reconstructed Indo-European root *kel-1, which means ‘to shout’. Although Dickinson did not have access to the Indo-European roots of twentieth-century philology, the primary sense of ‘shouting’ in *ghel-2 has an interesting connection with Poem 67: a cognate of the word CLEAR is the word DECLARE, which is a synonym of the lexical item tell. The clear bursting of the distant strains of triumph also connotes ‘declaring’ or ‘shouting’.

8. “who took the flag today” = “won” by periphrasis or circumlocution