Where It All Goes Down
If you have already hit up our "Speaker" section—and if you haven't, you should totes do that—then you'll know that we think of this poem's speaker as a teacher. She's imparting knowledge to readers near and far. When it comes to the setting, though, school is out… as an option.
The truth is that the only recognizable setting in this poem is not a classroom, but a [insert serious movie voice here] deadly battlefield that pits one group of combatants against another. Only one side can claim victory, though only the loser can understand what that victory truly means. [Roll the tagline: "Success is counted sweetest": coming… to a theater near you."]
Okay, so maybe this poem would not make the best feature film, but it could make a decent short. If we were to direct it, we would make sure to include lots of close-ups on the dying soldier's face as he strained to hear the victory music, playing off in the distance.
As we imagine this shot, we can see that Dickinson was actually on to something. The battlefield is actually a pretty apt choice of setting, because it's a place where success can be a super-big deal. To succeed on a battlefield means that you get to keep your life, while losers are either taken prisoner or worse: killed.
The setting, then, sets up this stark contrast, which then really drives home the poem's argument: you can't really appreciate or even know something unless it's totally denied to you. What better way to illustrate that paradox than with a dying solider, meditating on victory? Sure, it's no fun for the dying soldier, but his example is pretty powerful. So, um, thanks for losing?