Conquered to be Unconquered: A poem Review on Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Jerone Avel S. Cansino

MAED Soc Sci- Student

Introduction

Lying on a hospital bed after a foot is amputated, living life carrying an illness that he never really wished for. His life is put caught in the middle of a painful past and an obscure future. Henley created an immortal piece. A poem of 16 lines containing 8 syllables each that inspired people for decades. Among those is said to be Nelson Mandela (Britannica, n.d.) who sought refuge to it while being held in prison for 27 on charges of treason and violent insurgency. The man became the first non-white president of South Africa and again he used the poem to rally his people to unite in the 1995 Rugby world cup. The poem was written on 1875 during the reign of Queen Victoria of England. It is the time when Romanticism is given a new life giving away from the rationalistic ideas of the preceding age. Just seeing the words used by the poet is enough to send chills to those who read it.

There is a dark gloomy hue in this poem and its meaning is easy to be misunderstood and much more to be perverted. In the article of Sia Henry published on 2008 (Henry, 2008) she cited several events on how people reacted on the poem and it varies from person to person and those variations is to be accounted on their present status. Henry in her article and he repeats it over and over again that the poem is nonviolent it its very nature. In my case I want to prove that Henley declared war. Yes, he declares war and he won it in just one decisive stand. The poem was published originally with no title on 1888 (Wiki, n.d.). The title was added by the editor Arthur Quiller-Couch when the poem was included in the Oxford Book of English Verses

            The theme of the poem is darkness. It says that there is an enemy and he made it clear. When darkness is inevitable and there are thing that we cannot do away with, we can still fight the war and be unconquerable.

Analysis

            In the beginning there was nothing but darkness. On the very first line of the poem is the color of its theme. The darkness of the night are the things that had been testing him for years. At a young age he had developed tuberculosis of the bone back when he was 12. He lives in an era of a prosperous Great Britain. Victorian age is dubbed as the era of ‘Pax Britannica’ an age of freedom and prosperity. In such an age he lived to be a prisoner of his own body. It left a leaving mark on his life and so as in history.

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

            The first and the second lines, as we see implies a total darkness. It might seem that Henley was not able to see anything good in his existence supplemented by the first lines the third and fourth appears to be expressed in sheer sarcasm. We can note the term he used as ‘gods’ if we would look into the context of the late Victorian era Christianity has almost replaced England’s paganism a long time ago. Monotheist belief is the mainstream religion during that period. What I am trying to point out is the humanist orientation of Henley. This first lines must be his declaration that he no longer believe in the determinism of the supernatural. For the Christians, it might be one of his first declaration of doing away from faith and religion. But for the humanists it’s the first step of developing self-worth. It is his way of declaring war on pain and all the great dark shadow that covers him. He had already declared war.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud,

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed

The war has won. If the first stanza is an invitation of war. In the second stanza of the poem he is telling how he fought his war and how he won. It’s a declaration of victory.  On the first stanza, he also identified his true enemy. Rhetorically speaking the true enemy is self and the human crave for pleasure. ‘I have not winced nor cried aloud’, this could imply that he feels pain but he just used to it. The last line of the stanza is the declaration of his victory. His head is bloody but he refused defeat and he because he no longer feels pain he won. It is a manifestation of Henley’s adherence to the Stoic philosophy. Where the primary dictum is that man must suppress pleasure and choose pain. That pleasure is what causes us pain paradoxically as it is.

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.

He has won the war. The poet looks over the wide and far horizon. There is a flashback of the battle he had been through, the overwhelming pain and the danger of coming back of his great nemesis. The poet realizes that the threat is still there and something is coming back. It might be his tuberculosis among many other things. The last line is the declaration of his readiness to face his archenemy with pride bravery and strength. War will never end but he is prepared to face it head on. Wars will come and he will let it come to him and tell it face to face that he is not afraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

            The fourth stanza is the concluding statements of the poet. Throughout the poem he is creating a strong defense mechanism on the then desolation that discomforts him.  He establishing for himself that beyond the limitations of the body, it is the power of human soul that lives on through eternity. He believes that the power of human will and the courage is what really matters. What Henley tries to portray are simple philosophical arguments .The enemy is our very own selves. We have limitations because we are immortal souls inside our mortal bodies as Plato (Speaks, 2006) suggests. Pleasure is our enemy and the only thing we can do to win against it is to suppress it.

In his own example he won against an overwhelming enemy because he chose to win he refused to bow his head and cry. We can see the paradox in the poem in itself. He conquered himself first before others could. Following that, he became unconquered because he was conquered by a worthy conqueror. His defeat led him to victory and he became undefeated and unbeatable.  He held his ground and let the enemy attack him. Invictus is war account of an unconquered soul. Enemies and darkness will always be there. Diseases, injuries and death are some of the things that we cannot take hold of within our mortal limits. How to win against an overwhelming enemy is to overwhelm the limits of our body with our immortal soul. Our body is weak but our soul is strong. We use our strong component and we are invictus.

Recommendations

Like the soul of every human person this poem is also immortal. Every one of us is fighting our own battles. Every one of us feels defeated thus every one of us needs the wisdom of conquering our own self thoroughly so that no one could conquer us- not even death. This poem is a good material in teaching philosophy if the teacher is equipped with the right ideas. It is a good springboard for Sartre’s concept of freedom and Plato’s immortality of the soul Stoicism philosophy and self-worth.

This poem is also a good inspiration to the sufferers of disabilities and to those who have degenerative diseases. Death is constant, suffering is constant darkness is inevitable terrors are lurking and waiting for desolation. There are things that we cannot control. What we do is about it starts from the way we see it. The difference between a meaningful life and its opposite is the way how it was taken care of. What we have never really matters after we fail to capitalize for it. The ultimate fear of every man is death. Every human acts are done in the light of death. But the ultimate irony of life is that death is a great motivation of it. For Henley, he stopped reflecting on what is life after death. He is stating clearly in his case that he is concerned on life before death comes. Who is he when he is alive and what he has done with his life.

In this poem darkness is evil enough. We live in harsh circumstances. And if there is a greater evil it is self-pity, self-doubt and failure to live with pain. Fear is an enemy, and death is just an event. The true worth of a man is not the limits of his body. The true worth of every man is the strength of his soul. His ability to move forward and appreciate the good things in spite of the terrors of the dark night and the coldness of the coldest winters.

References

Britannica, T. E. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britanica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Ernest-Henley

Henry, S. (2008). Becoming Unconquerable. Writing 20 (Summer 2008): Disability, Arts and Culture, pp. 18-22.

Speaks, J. (2006, November 21). Platonic Arguments for the immortality of the soul.

Wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved from wikipedia.org: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus