INVICTUS 1
William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903
7. Invictus
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
5
10
15
HENLEY BIOGRAPHY
William Ernest Henley was born in Gloucester and was the eldest of a family of six children,
five sons and a daughter. His father, William, was a bookseller and stationer who died in
1868 and was survived by his young children and creditors. His mother, Mary Morgan, was
descended from the poet and critic, Joseph Warton. From 1861–67 Henley was a pupil at the
Crypt Grammar School (founded 1539). A Commission had attempted recently to revive the
school by securing the brilliant and academically distinguished T. E. Brown (1830-1897) as
headmaster. Brown's appointment was relatively brief (c.1857-63) but was a "revelation" for
INVICTUS 2
Henley because it introduced him to a poet and "man of genius - the first I'd ever seen". This
was the start of a lifelong friendship and Henley wrote an admiring memorial to Brown in the
New Review (December, 1897): "He was singularly kind to me at a moment when I needed
kindness even more than I needed encouragement".[1]
From the age of 12 Henley suffered from tuberculosis of the bone which resulted in the
amputation of his left leg below the knee during either 1865 or 1868-69.[2] According to
Robert Louis Stevenson's letters, the idea for the character of Long John Silver was inspired
by his real-life friend Henley. Stevenson's stepson, Lloyd Osbourne, described Henley as "..a
great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial,
astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and
vitality; he swept one off one's feet". In a letter to Henley after the publication of Treasure
Island Stevenson wrote "I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed
strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver...the idea of the maimed man, ruling
and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you".
Frequent illness often kept him from school, although the misfortunes of his father's business
may also have contributed. During 1867, Henley passed the Oxford Local Schools
Examination and soon afterwards moved to London where he attempted to establish himself
as a journalist.[3] However, his work over the next eight years was interrupted by long periods
in hospital because his right foot was also diseased. Henley contested the diagnosis that a
second amputation was the only way to save his life by becoming a patient of the pioneering
surgeon Joseph Lister (1827–1912) at The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. After three years in
hospital (1873-75), Henley was discharged. Lister's treatment had not effected a complete
cure but enabled Henley to have a relatively active life for nearly 30 years.
Henley's gravestone, Cockayne Hatley
His literary acquaintances also resulted in his sickly young daughter, Margaret Emma Henley
(b. 4 September 1888), being immortalised by J. M. Barrie in his children's classic Peter
Pan.[4][5] Unable to speak clearly, the young Margaret referred to her friend Barrie as her
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"fwendy-wendy", resulting in the use of the name Wendy, which was coined for the book.
Margaret never read the book; she died on 11 February 1894 at the age of 5 and was buried at
the country estate of her father's friend, Harry Cockayne Cust, in Cockayne Hatley,
Bedfordshire.[5][4]
After his recovery, Henley earned a living in publishing. During 1889 he became editor of
the Scots Observer, an Edinburgh journal similar to the old Saturday Review. It was
transferred to London during 1891 as the National Observer and remained under Henley's
editorship until 1893. Though, as Henley confessed, the paper had almost as many writers as
readers, and its fame was confined mainly to the literary class, it was a lively and influential
feature of the literary life of its time. Henley had an editor's gift of discerning talent, and the
"Men of the Scots Observer", as Henley affectionately and characteristically termed his band
of contributors, in most instances justified his insight. The newspaper's context was often
sympathetic to the growing imperialism of its time, and among other services to literature it
published Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads.
Henley died at the age of 53 and was buried in the same churchyard as his daughter in
Cockayne Hatley. His wife, Salina Robinson Henley, was later buried at the same site.
POEM ANALYSIS
Henley’s 16-line poem made the nearly-obscured Henley an indelible name in English Literature. Delve more into
the beauty and meaning of the poem through this short yet detailed analysis.
William Ernest Henley’s poems in the collection ‘In Hospital’ are considered among the early examples of free
verse—ranking him among the fathers of this poetic form. However, he is best remembered –at times, solely
remembered – for Invictus, a metrical poem in a-b rhyme scheme. The poem is recited in the movie Casablanca,
contributing to its popularity in contemporary times.
Invictus is Latin for ‘unconquered’. The poem is composed of four quatrains. The sixteen lines have and alternating
rhyme scheme, the end rhymes being complete rhymes except for the fourteenth and sixteenth lines which end in
half rhymes. Each line of the poem has eight syllables despite their uneven length, as is shown below:
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The poem lacks a definite metrical pattern but it is still a lyric poem due to its briefness (having only sixteen lines)
and subjectivity (expresses the author’s thoughts and feelings without and antecedent or preceding conflict which
explains the persona’s attitude).
The lines are end stopped, i.e. every line conveys a single thought. This gives the poem the tone of finality and
certainty which coincides with the writer’s attitude throughout the poem. This attitude is best expressed in the
eleventh and thirteenth line. Henley shows deftness in prosody, being able to create consistent end rhymes without
disrupting the flow of thought by breaking a syntactic unit. Note that the thought in each line is complete despite the
writer’s rigid adherence to the a-b rhyme scheme.
INVICTUS 4
The mood is gloomy although the persona’s attitude is optimistic. This is due to the diction or choice of words.
‘Gloomy’ words like night, cover, black, Pit, in the first quatrain set the mood for the rest of the poem. This mood is
sustained throughout the poem with words like fell, under, bludgeonings, beyond, tears, looms, horror, shade,
menace, strait, and scroll. The obscure sounding word bludgeoning in the seventh line and scroll in the fourteenth,
which evoke and apocalyptic and therefore gloomy and menacing image, put the reader deeper into this mood. (In
conventional usage, bludgeoning is a verb and cannot be suffixed with an –s.)
The tone reveals the persona’s unyielding attitude. Henley might have set the gloomy mood to magnify the obdurate
tone of the persona. However, the mood is so vivid that it equals, and it almost, overshadows the tone.
Winced and cried are the only auditory words in the poem; the rest are visual (night, black, bloody, shade, etc). This
implies that the persona prefers his being ‘unconquered’ to be seen and not to be felt nor heard. The persona does
not want the reader to feel for him, nor to sympathize with him. He’d rather have them witness his glory in being
unconquered.
The poem is laden with archetypal symbols; symbols which have a general, if not universal, connotation. Night
symbolizes the hardships that the persona has gone through and being ‘out’ of it implies that he has overcome them.
The image of the night is made more vivid by comparing it (through simile) with a Pit. The word is synonymous
with abyss, which in turn connotes hell, and the phrase ‘pole to pole’ suggests that it is as deep as the longitudinal
length of the earth. Simply put, a very very deep pit. The Pit could also be the earth/world itself, which the persona
views as a place of gloom. This connotation coincides with his description of the world as a ‘place of wrath and
tears’. After overcoming hardship, he thanks ‘whatever gods may be’.
The use of the words ‘whatever’ and ‘may’ in line three is sardonic, implying that his strength is innate and divine
intervention would not make a difference. Thanking a god whose nature and existence is uncertain (whatever gods
may be) makes it more sarcastic. Soul in the fourth line does not necessarily refer to the religious perspective of it. It
could simply mean his attitude. Fell in line five is an adjective which means cruel. The persona cannot control the
things that happen around him (being held or clutched by it, rather than being the one holding it). But he is able to
bear it without turning away or withdrawing from it (have not winced). ‘Nor cry aloud’ implies that he did not seek
help or sympathy from other people. Line 9 may imply either life or the world, pictured as a ‘place of wrath and
tears’ because of hardships and sufferings. ‘Horror of the shade’ which connotes death, looms. Horror implies that
death is feared by people, something that obliterates their existence. This death is present yet the persona cannot tell
when and where it will come since it ‘looms’. Despite this uncertainty, the persona is not afraid—the menace of
years finds me and shall find me unafraid. And whatever threat or menace of misfortune may come, he shall be
brave as always, as he is at present.
The phrase ‘it matters not’ is the direct statement of the indifference implied in lines 3, 6, and 12. The phrase itself
could be considered the theme of the whole poem, indifference to suffering, to go along with inconquerability of the
persona’s will. The persona does not care how difficult (strait) it is to enter glory (gate), nor does he care about the
consequences of his actions (how charged with punishments the scroll). The scroll is an image used repeatedly in the
book of Revelation. Both gate and scroll are Biblical images which the persona is indifferent towards. This implies
that divine intervention could only do so much, and it is man who decides for himself:
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
I am is repeated in the last line when the last two lines could stand in this manner—
I am the master of my fate;
The captain of my soul.
Aside from preserving the eight-syllable pattern, the repetition of ‘I am’ emphasizes the individual, the value of self.
This poem is an antithesis of Calvin’s religious view of predestination and Laplace’s philosophy of determinism.
This illustrates the poem’s staunchly humanistic attitude. The last line reinforces the title–it is man who makes
decisions for himself. Until he decides to give up, he shall remain Invictus, Unconquered.