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Word Gems
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William Ernest Henley
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“Invictus”, William Ernest Henley
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.
from https://www.litcharts.com
"Invictus" was written by William Ernest Henley in 1875, while he underwent medical treatment for tuberculosis of the bone. Originally the fourth part of a longer sequence published in Henley's collection In Hospital, this 16-line section has taken on a life of its own. The unwavering resilience it summons in the face of adversity has led to its enduring popularity and use in a variety of contexts. The poem's uncertain relationship with religion and its insistence on individual strength also ties it to issues facing England in the late 19th century.
“Invictus” Summary
The speaker begins by emerging from a metaphorical night that lies on top of the speaker like a physical thing. This night, which seems to fill the whole world, is as dark as Hell. Despite this darkness, the speaker feels gratitude towards any god or gods that may exist for granting unshakeable resilience.
Looking back on life's past challenges, which constrained the speaker like a giant fist, the speaker remembers never showing discomfort or complaining. Going even further, the speaker compares life's unexpected mishaps to being beaten with a heavy implement. The speaker was damaged by this beating, yet that fact did not decrease the speaker's pride or resolve.
Now the speaker looks beyond the present of anger and sadness to the future. Unfortunately, the future's only certainty is death, which hangs over the present like a terrifying shadow. However, the speaker once again affirms that the threat of inevitable suffering does not, and never will, frighten the speaker.
The speaker doesn't care how challenging life becomes, alluding to a biblical passage in which a narrow gate represents extreme difficulty. Nor does the speaker care how many horrible events lie in the book of fate. The speaker controls the course of their own inner life. Like a ship's captain, the speaker remains in charge of their inner life's unconquerable element: the soul.
“Invictus” is above all a poem about resilience in the face of suffering. This resilience comes from the courage to embrace life and refuse despair. In addition to its proud statement of the speaker’s current bravery, the poem is also a balm against any future instances of adversity; it’s ultimately an assertion of the boundless strength of the human spirit.
The poem has a repetitive structure that emphasizes the recurring nature of adversity and the constancy of inner strength. Note how each stanza opens with a description of adversity and ends with an affirmation of emotional fortitude. The first stanza, for instance, begins with the prepositional phrase “out of” as the speaker emerges from the darkness of suffering that “covers” the speaker. This stanza then closes with an assertion of the speaker's "unconquerable soul.” That is, the speaker’s resilience remains untouched by life’s difficulties.
The second stanza takes a similar form, now turning to physical bludgeoning as a metaphor for life’s unpredictable difficulties. Though “bloodied,” the speaker doesn't bow to these difficulties and instead faces them head on. The third and fourth stanzas consider future challenges that lie “Beyond this place," but again reaffirm that the speaker remains “unafraid” and self-possessed as “the master of my fate.”
Not only does the speaker emphasize personal strength in the face of hardship, but the poem specifically refuses to complain about life's seemingly relentless adversities. Despite all that the speaker has faced, this person has “not winced nor cried aloud.” The poem doesn't whine or languish in sadness, but rather states the speaker’s philosophy in an assertive manner meant to rouse and inspire. This is especially clear in the poem's famous last two lines. Here, the speaker takes on the authority of “master” and “captain,” as well as the pride and glory associated with these terms. This use of “captain” also ties into the title of the poem ("invictus" means "unconquerable") as a word related to the military, creating an aura of military valor. That is, the poem acts like a rallying cry made to inspire oneself, rather than as a lamentation about the difficulties of life.
Though the poem speaks proudly of past and present adversity, it also declares that all future challenges will be met with the same resilience. It this way, the poem articulates the speaker’s belief in a lifelong philosophy of courage. Note first how the poem almost always speaks in the present tense. In doing so, it affirms the vivacity and presence of the speaker, who has not given up on life: “My head is bloodied, but unbowed.” Yet As long as death “looms” in the future, there will always be challenges. And indeed, the second half of the poem asserts courage against “the menace of the years,” or future difficulties.
In the third stanza, the speaker notably uses the future tense to claim power over the future, saying the years “shall find me unafraid.” Here, the poem’s only use of a non-present tense emphasizes how the speaker’s strength won’t be diminished over time. Finally, in the fourth stanza, after speculating on what lies in store, the poem ends on a final anaphora of “I am” that reiterates the speaker's resolve. This “am” treats that resolve as a stable part of the speaker’s identity. Having given repeated affirmations of resilience, the speaker remains unshaken by past and future, knowing that inner courage will always serve as a fortification against trouble.
The speaker’s pride in persevering through difficult times pits free will against fate. Free will is the idea that people can choose their own actions and thoughts, rather than being controlled by fate. Though the opposing ideas of free will and fate conflict throughout the poem, the speaker ultimately insists upon a middle ground, in which individuals freely choose their emotional responses to life’s inevitable constraints.
The challenges that the speaker describes don't come from specific sources, like people or even identifiable events. Rather, the poem depicts an individual person caught within vast and abstract sources of suffering. Note how the poem begins with images of “night” in the first line and “the pit,” or Hell, in the second. As metaphors, these two lines treat personal suffering as vague and cosmic in scope. This night of suffering covers the speaker, acting as a limitation, and is the first suggestion of fate—or inevitable hardship beyond the speaker's control—in the poem.
Next, “the fell clutch of circumstance” makes a blatant statement of fate as the poem’s central conflict. Again, as with “covers” in the previous stanza, “clutch” treats the individual speaker as a person caught within broad, vague difficulties. Here, circumstance has become vaguely personified as a malicious god that has the speaker within its grip, both echoing and contrasting with the benevolent “whatever gods may be” from the previous stanza. Finally, death—the last “punishment” on the “scroll” of fate—always looms as a certainty. It lies “Beyond this place of wrath and tears” as the “Horror of the shade.” Essentially, the speaker can’t expect anything from life beyond an eventual death; fate isn’t obligated to dole out happiness.
Yet, despite such facts as the certainty of death, the speaker believes in the ability to control one’s response to adversity. This in turn leads to a sense of inner freedom even as the speaker can't control things like "the fell clutch of circumstance" nor the "bludgeonings of chance." When the speaker says, “I have not winced nor cried aloud,” and “My head is bloody, but unbowed,” this emphasizes the temptation of doing exactly those things: wincing, crying out, bowing one’s head. The speaker makes a conscious choice not to do those things.
The final usage of “master” and “captain” again gestures at the idea of freedom. We define masters and captains by their ability—and responsibility—to choose. Yet the full phrases “master of my fate” and “captain of my soul” create some ambiguity. Up until now, the word “fate” was implied in words like “circumstance” as a cosmic force for suffering and death. How can the speaker control fate, after spending the whole poem describing the impossibility of doing so? The phrase “captain of my soul” helps point us in a new direction by seeing fate in terms of the speaker’s internal life. One can choose what happens within one’s own mind and in that way control the “fate” of one’s emotional life.
“Invictus” doesn’t find clear answers to the nature of fate or the possibility of acting freely. It does, however, assert that we all have mastery over own interior lives, which provides resilience against whatever forces seek to control us.
“Invictus” places the speaker’s reponse to adversity within the context of God’s uncertain existence. This uncertainty about God, a view known as agnosticism, contrasts with the speaker’s faith in self-empowerment.
The first stanza uses both the words “gods” and “soul,” immediately suggesting that the speaker wants to, in some way, engage with religion. Yet each engagement comes with uncertainty. For instance, rather than saying “God,” as would a traditionally Christian speaker in this context, the speaker says “whatever gods may be.” Not only does this throw God’s existence into doubt, it also raises the possibility of other non-Christian divinities. Were the speaker to say instead, “I thank God / For my unconquerable soul,” we might have classified this poem, at least at the beginning, as a prayer or a devotional poem. That said, even as it is, the poem retains some aura of prayer.
In contrast to evoking divine goodness, this first stanza also has the religious imagery of Hell—“the pit.” The darkness of night and Hell represents the difficulty of understanding the forces that cause one’s suffering. As the speaker emerges “Out of” this darkness, it is not God that becomes clear, but the speaker’s own inner strength. This would ultimately suggest a rejection of religion as a source of guidance and fortitude in the face of suffering.
Further engaging with Christianity, the poem contains a biblical allusion in its final stanza. The phrase “strait the gate” comes from Matthew 7:14 in the King James Bible: “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” This quote more specifically comes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, where he details the rigors of living a virtuous Christian life. Here, however, the speaker treats that difficulty not as an eventual good, but as another evil presented by fate—another potential hardship to overcome. Thus, Christianity deeply informs the poem while the speaker remains skeptical of it.
On the other hand, the speaker’s use of the word “soul” suggests a bolder and less uncertain attitude. The speaker professes unshakeable faith in the soul. However, the poem still leaves us with a limited vision of what that word actually means. After passing through spiritual uncertainty in the first three lines, the speaker lands on the “unconquerable soul.” In contrast to the “pit” of suffering, the soul becomes a core of strength, that which chooses life over despair. Yet, unlike Christianity, the poem does not assure us of the soul’s immortality. The “Horror” of death, which always "looms" over the speaker, offers no such promises.
At the end of the poem the soul remains uncorrupted. Yet now the speaker has become the soul’s “captain,” not simply relying on it but also in charge of it. This shift, though subtle, is still a shift. On one hand, it raises the poem’s valorous tone to an even greater intensity. On the other hand, this shift creates ambiguity about the nature of the soul. If you can “captain” your soul, that means you are also somehow separate from it. Rather than making choices, the soul becomes passive at the end of the poem; now, the speaker makes choices for the soul. So while the speaker retains faith in the soul, the soul’s exact nature remains unclear.
“Invictus” thus invokes Christian ideas of fate and suffering while refusing to commit to Christianity. The poem even subtly increases uncertainty about the nature of inner strength and the soul. Its faith in that strength, however, never wavers.
The first line of “Invictus” begins the poem in the midst of adversity, an opening that the following stanzas will imitate in some way. It begins with a dramatic—if somewhat conventional—metaphor, comparing suffering to night. But the speaker doesn’t stop there with this comparison. Going one step further, night becomes a substance that “covers” the speaker, like tar perhaps. By nesting a metaphor within a metaphor, the poem establishes that it's going to operate on a highly figurative level.
That doesn’t mean the poem won’t use more concrete imagery—far from it, as this line actively engages the body by depicting darkness as a substance that physically touches the speaker. As a quick biographical aside, Henley’s physical body was an important element of his public persona and in his personal life. When he was a child, he lost his left leg to tuberculosis of the bone. However, as an adult his physical robustness and zest for life inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s character Long John Silver in Treasure Island. Furthermore, during the writing of “Invictus,” Henley was undergoing an experimental medical treatment for tuberculosis of the bone, and was in danger of losing his other leg. It's no wonder, then, that bodily suffering runs as an undercurrent in “Invictus.” However, we aren't meant to read such instances of physical harm literally, but rather take them as representing the kind of intense agonies that life can throw at us.
This first line is also dramatic in that it both establishes the poem’s meter and switches up that meter. In fact, this happens in the very first syllable. The poem uses iambic tetrameter, or an eight syllable line of four iambs, following a repeating pattern of unstressed-stressed syllables (da DUM). However, the very first foot of the poem is a trochee (stressed-unstressed; DA dum) followed by a return to regular iambic meter:
Out of | the night | that cov- | ers me,
This means that the poem begins on an authoritatively stressed syllable. We immediately become aware of the speaker’s willfulness (who won’t even be constrained by meter for one line!). We are also taken by the force of this “out,” which emerges from silence just as the speaker emerges from the night of suffering.
This metrical switch-up also creates a space of two unstressed syllables between “Out” and “night,” so that when the second stress does come with the word "night," it seems to hit extra hard. Thus we’re left with an opposition between “Out of” and “the night,” which mimics the opposition between the speaker’s willfulness and the constraining forces of suffering (literally constraining, if we think of Henley bedridden in the hospital).
Finally, the first line ends on the stressed word “me,” which will also become its first rhyming word. This places an emphasis on the first person that will continue throughout the poem.
The soul is the most important symbol in "Invictus" and also the most ambiguous. It gets referenced twice in the poem, at the beginning and end, thereby framing the poem and emphasizing its importance. Though we can't identify the exact nature of the soul in this poem, it does possess certain important qualities. The first is given to us in the word "unconquerable." Here, the soul symbolizes whatever it is, within oneself, that cannot be defeated by life's hardships. It represents something like inner strength, or the source of inner strength.
In the context of late nineteenth-century England (when and where this poem was written), the word "soul" has Christian connotations. The poet gestures at Christianity with the phrase "whatever gods may be," while also using that phrase to undermine any certainty in religion. If religion's main competitor during this era was science, we can think of the soul as representing some core inner of strength given to one by nature, rather than God.
By the end of the poem, the soul has become something that can be "captained." Rather than simply representing a source of strength that one relies on, now it becomes something that one actively guides and controls, perhaps like a ship. This formulation increases the conceptual divide between the "I" (at the start of the line) and "my soul." So, while this final line once again affirms the power of inner strength, it also heightens the mystery of the exact nature of that strength. That strength, the "soul," both belongs to the speaker and is separate from the speaker.
On an earthly level, the scroll here can be taken as the legal documentation of one's punishment for a crime. We can think of all the instances in which paper documentation seals one's fate, from ancient instances of exile to modern cases of eviction and criminal sentencing. Fate, and fatalism, is the central concept here; symbolically, the potentially punishment-filled scroll reflects the inevitable hardships of life.
Due to the poem's thematic concern with fate and its ongoing engagement with religion, there's also a Christian interpretation to this symbol. This interpretation basically takes the earthly one to a cosmic scale, where God decides whether each person receives eternal damnation or eternal salvation. We can also think of the recording angel—that is, the angel who actually writes down all human events. To generalize, then, this symbol of the scroll suggests theological determinism through the permanence of writing, a book of fate that has decided the course of all our lives in advance.
We should also note this symbolic use of writing here, against which the poem implicitly sets up its own form of writing. Rather than encompassing all lives on a cosmic scale, as this "scroll" might, the poem refers to a single life: the speaker's. However, we can also note how the poem, like the scroll, places the speaker's individual life within the context of cosmic forces, again reflecting the push and pull between fate and self-determination.
The enjambment in "Invictus" works very intuitively. Line breaks happen at natural pauses and help establish a clear conceptual relationship between the two lines in question.
For example, look at lines 3 and 4. In line 4, the speaker introduces the act of thanking and who gets thanked (that is, the "gods"). Then line 5 details exactly what the speaker is thankful for (that is, their "unconquerable soul").
A similar case happens in lines 9 and 10, where line 10 serves to complete the description offered by line 9. What is "beyond" the "wrath and tears"? The looming "Horror of the shade." This use of enjambment pushes the reader to keep going in order to complete the thought, much as the speaker keeps going through uncertainty and adversity. Enjambment also creates a kind of suspension where we wait to see how the second line with not only complete the sense of the previous line, but also intensify it. Look, for instance, how "Horror of the shade" offers an intenser version of "this place of wrath and tears."
Other times (throughout the second stanza and particularly in lines 11 and 12), the enjambment serves to highlight an opposition. The first line details an instance of adversity, then the second line asserts how the speaker remains undaunted by that adversity. Notice how in these instances the speaker doesn't escape that adversity. For example, line 12 begins as "the menace of the years / finds" the speaker. Or how, on the page, the speaker's "bloody" body in line 8 is literally "Under the bludgeonings of chance" in line 7. That is, enjambment helps lyrically reflect the ways in which the speaker asserts strength within constraints.
The Latin translation of "unconquerable." Originally, this poem was an untitled section in a longer poem. The title was added later when the poem was reproduced on its own. In this way, the title can be thought of as a "translation" of the poem as a whole.
"Invictus" consists of four rhymed quatrain stanzas. There is no single standard use for quatrains in English—they have been used widely and evoke a large range of emotions and experiences. In the case of this poem, quatrains create a sense of stability. The structure emphasizes order and repetition. The poem contains four stanzas with four stresses per line, further adding to that sense of order. Each stanza also finishes with a period, a clear end-stop, causing each one to act as a self-contained unit. This allows each stanza to repeat the poem's central structure of describing adversity and then invoking personal strength. The stanzas build on one another by offering variations on this theme. The self-enclosure of the stanzas also mimics the self-sufficiency that acts as the poem's main philosophy.
"Invictus" follows a relatively straightforward iambic tetrameter. The poem basically follows this meter consistently, except for a few careful variations, which matches the speaker's self-possession. The meter doesn't jump all over the place with expressive twitchiness, but marches steadily forward. However, the willful speaker won't be held down by meter when the time comes to make a point.
The first line displays both these qualities:
Out of | the night | that cov- | ers me,
The poem employs a trochee for emphasis at the beginning, to capture the feeling of the speaker emerging from night. A similar thing happens with line 2, perhaps stressing the intensity of the suffering from which the speaker emerges:
Black as | the pit | from pole | to pole,
After that, however, rather than continuing to vary the meter, the poem falls back into a carefully-controlled iambic pattern. It's also worth noting the four stresses of each line mirror the four lines of the stanza and four stanzas of the poem, thus adding to the poem's overall feeling of stability.
The most metrically intense moment comes in line 12:
Finds and | shall find | me un- | afraid.
Here, the extra stresses—which create a spondee in the second foot, followed by another trochee in the third—serve to emphasize the speaker's willful attitude towards time. This line could also arguably be scanned as follows, with a spondee followed by an iamb:
Finds and | shall find | me un- | afraid.
In either case, though, the emphasis on "shall find" suggests the intensity of the speaker's faith in their own inner strength; it's not a question of whether or not "menace of the years" will find the speaker again—it will, and the speaker will boldly face it head on.
After this, the poem returns to its stability. In another moment of intensity, the final two lines both begin with trochees:
I am | the mast- | er of | my fate,
I am | the cap- | tain of | my soul.
This, however, only serves to mirror the poem's opening stress. Thus, the poem ends by emphasizing the speaker's willfulness, self-possession, and carefulness.
The poem employs an ABAB rhyme scheme in each stanza. The rhyme scheme for the entire poem can be stated as follows:
ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH
The poem never deviates from this rhyme scheme, again emphasizing its stability and the speaker's steadfast strength. It does, however, employ an internal rhyme and some internal slant rhymes.
The poem's internal rhyme comes in the first sentence of the last stanza in the phrase "strait the gate." With this rhyme of words that come one almost immediately after the other, sound seems to limit itself, as if narrowing like the gate it describes.
The pome also contains slant rhymes in the words "winced" and "circumstance"/"chance"; in "bludgeonings" and "bloody"; in "place" and "shade"/"unafraid"; and in "matters" and "master." All these subtle rhymes work to show transformations and evolutions between these words. For instance, in the second stanza, "bludgeonings" leads to one becoming "bloody." This transformation parallels the same stanza's use of "winced" as the result of "circumstance" (though of course the speaker also rises above that result).
Next, in the third stanza, "place" (which represents life) sets the scene for the rhyming words "shade" and "unafraid, each of which modifies the "place." "[S]hade" introduces the darkness of death that surrounds the place of life, and "unafraid" states that this darkness cannot daunt the speaker. Then, in the fourth stanza, the speaker's fearlessness becomes further intensified as "matters" transforms into "master." This transformation replaces negation ("It matters not") with affirmation ("I am the master"), while also switching from the third person ("It") to the first person ("I"), further emphasizing the speaker's self-control.
Using these internal rhymes while being faithful to the overall rhyme scheme again emphasizes the speaker's self-control, on one hand, and expressiveness on the other.
“Invictus” Speaker
The poem offers very few hints as to the speaker's identity. In some sense it's meant to be general enough to apply to anybody's life, which has contributed to its enduring popularity; this is a poem meant to be able to inspire anyone.
One reason we might relate the poem to Henley's own life is its consciousness of the body, as is clear in line 6. After all, Henley wrote the poem while undergoing treatment for tuberculosis of the bone. To assume Henley himself is the speaker of the poem isn't necessary, however, and the poem always uses the body in a highly metaphorical manner.
We can also sense that this speaker has been impacted by Christianity yet no longer has certainty in it. Apart from this, the speaker could be anyone who repeatedly affirms personal resilience in the face of incredible adversity.
Ultimately, the speaker asserts a philosophy of self-sufficiency and a kind of inner free will, regardless of the events fate throws at us. This philosophy comes to define the speaker.
“Invictus” Setting
"Invictus" has no clear setting because almost all of it is meant to be taken metaphorically. However, its language does create metaphorical or psychological spaces that the poem passes through. Look at, for instance, the night/hell that the poem comes out of in the first stanza, which becomes as big as a world. This hell "Looms" again in the third stanza, this time as a literal Hell in the distance. In these instances, the space of the poem becomes quite large, even cosmic in scope.
At other times, space constricts to encompass only the speaker's body, as in the "clutch of circumstance" or the "strait" gate. These changes in scale emphasize the many ways we can confront adversity in our lives. Sometimes it seems like the whole universe conspires against us, other times it's our own bodies. We can apply many different specific situations to these spaces, because they're metaphorical images, not literal ones; in other words, this is a poem that seeks to offer a sense of inspiration and resolve that applies to many different settings.
Literary and Historical Context of “Invictus”
Literary Context
Henley's work emerged during a time when writers were grappling with how individuals make meaning in a world where God's existence is uncertain. After publishing in In Hospital, the book that "Invictus" comes from, Henley would go on to have a long and influential literary career in London. Among his oldest friends in this scene was Robert Louis Stevenson. An editor introduced the two writers while Henley was in the hospital undergoing treatment for tuberculosis of the bone. Henley had already lost one leg to the disease as a child, and Stevenson acknowledged Henley as the inspiration for his character Long John Silver in the book Treasure Island.
The values of the literary scene that Henley helped foster can be seen in bothTreasure Island and "Invictus." Both affirm life, adventure, and the indomitable human spirit. They don't shy away from suffering, nor do they treat suffering as an excuse to turn away from life. Henley and his circle regarded themselves in opposition to the decadence of writers like Algernon Charles Swinburne and Oscar Wilde. Rather than languishing in apathy, excess, artificiality, and contemplations of death, Henley and his fellow writers affirmed life at all costs. For them, this compensated for a world without God.
Though In Hospital does contain some poems written in an early form of free verse, Henley's poetry is not generally regarded as formally radical. Rather, his poems helped established a new mood and tone for English writing.
Historical Context
Henley wrote Invictus almost 20 years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species. In the intervening years, science had thoroughly shaken the foundations of Christianity. Many philosophies emerged to replace it. One such theory is Social Darwinism, a theory that coincides with the rise of capitalism and seeks to apply evolutionary theory to human beings. The Romantic Era, which preceded Henley's, believed that individuals could find meaning in their lives by turning to nature.
Without subscribing to any specific theory, Henley's poetry can be seen as engaging with these questions, testing out a way to evaluate individual lives without reference to God. For instance, although "Invictus" makes reference to Christianity, science was just as important in Henley's life. During his time in the hospital, his remaining leg would have been amputated as well, had he not insisted upon a doctor who would perform the latest form of treatment. Thus we see Henley engaging with the major forces of his time: religion, science, and the individual.
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