Never Ever Give Up: An Analysis of the Poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley

A Paper Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Subject Introduction to Literary Types

La Consolacion University Philippines April 2013

I. Development of Poetry The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. English, as we know it, descends from the language spoken by the north Germanic tribes who settled in England from the 5th century A.D. onwards. They had no writing until they learned the Latin alphabet from Roman missionaries. The earliest written works in Old English were probably composed orally at first, and may have been passed on from speaker to speaker before being written. We know the names of some of the later writers (Cdmon, lfric and King Alfred) but most writing is anonymous. Old English literature is mostly chronicle and poetry lyric, descriptive but chiefly narrative or epic. By the time literacy becomes widespread, Old English is effectively a foreign and dead language. And its forms do not significantly affect subsequent developments in English literature. The earliest surviving poetry was likely transmitted orally; thus, dating the earliest poetry remains difficult. The earliest surviving manuscripts date from the 10th century. Poetry written in Latin, Brythonic and Old Irish survives which may date as early as the 6th century. The earliest surviving poetry written in Anglo-Saxon may have been composed as early as the 7th century. The earliest known English poem is a hymn on the creation. Bede attributes this to Cdmon (fl. 658680), who was, an illiterate herdsman who produced extemporaneous poetry at a monastery at Whitby. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Modern lyric poetry in English begins in the early 16th century with the work of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). Wyatt, who is greatly influenced by the Italian, Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) introduces the sonnet and a range of short lyrics to English, while Surrey (as he is known) develops unrhymed pentameters (or blank verse) thus inventing the verse form which will be of great use to contemporary dramatists. A flowering of lyric poetry in the reign of Elizabeth comes with such writers as Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Walter Ralegh (1552-1618), Christopher

Marlowe (1564-1593) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The major works of the time are Spenser's Faerie Queen, Sidney's Astrophil and Stella and Shakespeare's sonnets. The greatest of Elizabethan lyric poets is John Donne (1572-1631), whose short love poems are characterized by wit and irony, as he seeks to wrest meaning from experience. The preoccupation with the big questions of love, death and religious faith marks out Donne and his successors who are often called metaphysical poets. (This name, coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson in an essay of 1779, was revived and popularized by T.S. Eliot, in an essay of 1921. It can be unhelpful to modern students who are unfamiliar with this adjective, and who are led to think that these poets belonged to some kind of school or group - which is not the case.) After his wife's death, Donne underwent a serious religious conversion, and wrote much fine devotional verse. The best known of the other metaphysicals are George Herbert (1593-1633), Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) and Henry Vaughan (1621-1695). The major poets of the Victorian era are Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) and Robert Browning (1812-1889). Both are prolific and varied, and their work defies easy classification. Tennyson makes extensive use of classical myth and Arthurian legend, and has been praised for the beautiful and musical qualities of his writing. Browning's chief interest is in people; he uses blank verse in writing dramatic monologues in which the speaker achieves a kind of self-portraiture: his subjects are both historical individuals (Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea del Sarto) and representative types or caricatures (Mr. Sludge the Medium). W.B. (William Butler) Yeats (1865-1939) is one of two figures who dominate modern poetry, the other being T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888-1965). Yeats was Irish; Eliot was born in the USA but settled in England, and took UK citizenship in 1927. Yeats uses conventional lyric forms, but explores the connection between modern themes and classical and romantic ideas. Eliot uses elements of conventional forms, within an unconventionally structured whole in his greatest works. Where Yeats is prolific as a poet, Eliot's reputation largely rests on two long and complex works: The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943).

The work of these two has overshadowed the work of the best late Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian poets, some of whom came to prominence during the First World War. Among these are Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), A.E. Housman (1859-1936), Edward Thomas (1878-1917), Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) and Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918). The most celebrated modern American poet, is Robert Frost (1874-1963), who befriended Edward Thomas before the war of 1914-1918. Other Victorian poets of note include Browning's wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) and Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) is notable for his use of what he calls "sprung rhythm"; as in Old English verse syllables are not counted, but there is a pattern of stresses. Hopkins' work was not well-known until very long after his death. Between the two wars, a revival of romanticism in poetry is associated with the work of W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907-73), Louis MacNeice (1907-63) and Cecil Day-Lewis (190472). Auden seems to be a major figure on the poetic landscape, but is almost too contemporary to see in perspective. The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas (1914-53) is notable for strange effects of language, alternating from extreme simplicity to massive overstatement. Of poets who have achieved celebrity in the second half of the century, evaluation is even more difficult, but writers of note include the American Robert Lowell (1917-77), Philip Larkin (1922-1985), R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), Thom Gunn (1929-2004), Ted Hughes (1930-1998) and the 1995 Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney (b. 1939). With the growth of trade and the British Empire, the English language had been widely used outside England. In the 21st century, only a small percentage of the world's native English speakers live in England, and there is also a vast population of non-native speakers of English who are capable of writing poetry in the language. A number of major national poetries, including the American, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and Indian poetry have emerged and developed. Since the establishment of the Irish Republic in 1922, only poets from Northern Ireland are now British.

II. Background of the Author William Ernest Henley (1849 - 1903) was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus". Henley was born in Gloucester, England and was the eldest of a family of six children. His father, William, was a bookseller and stationer. His mother, Mary Morgan, was descended from the poet and critic Joseph Wharton. After contracting tuberculosis of the bone in his youth, he suffered a tubercular infection when he was in his early twenties that resulted in amputation of a leg below the knee. When physicians informed him that he must undergo a similar operation on the other leg, he enlisted the services of Dr. Joseph Lister (1827-1912), the developer of antiseptic medicine. He saved the leg. During Henley's twenty-month ordeal between 1873 and 1875 at the Royal Edinburgh Infirmary in Scotland, he wrote Invictus and other poems. Years later, his friend Robert Louis Stevenson based the character Long John Silver on Henley. On January 22, 1878, he married Hannah Johnson Boyle (18551925), the youngest daughter of Edward Boyle, a mechanical engineer from Edinburgh, and his wife, Mary Ann Mackie. Henley's sickly young daughter, Margaret Henley, was immortalized by the author J. M. Barrie in his children's classic, Peter Pan. Unable to speak clearly, young Margaret had called her friend Barrie her "fwendy-wendy", resulting in the use of "Wendy" in the book. Unfortunately, Margaret didn't survive long enough to read the book; she died on February 11, 1894 at the age of five. After his recovery, Henley earned his living as a publisher. In 1889 he became editor of the Scots Observer, an Edinburgh journal of the arts and current events and precursor of the National Observer (UK). After its headquarters were transferred to London in 1891, it became the National Observer and remained under Henley's editorship until 1893.

Henley died of tuberculosis in 1903 at the age of 53 at his home in Woking. III. Analysis of the Poem "Invictus" is a short Victorian poem. The poem was first published in 1875 in a book called Book of Verses, where it was number four in several poems called Life and Death (Echoes). The poem was originally untitled. Its early printings contained only the dedication To R. T. H. B.a reference to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce (18461899), successful Scottish flour merchant, baker and a literary patron. The title "Invictus" (Latin for "unconquered") was added by the editor Arthur QuillerCouch when the poem was included in The Oxford Book of English Verse. "Invictus" appears in prestigious anthologies, including Modern British Poetry (New York, Harcourt, 1920). Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela both recited from it to stir their listeners. A. Paraphrase 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 bludgeoning 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. Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, is a very powerful, well written, and detailed poem. After reading this poem over and over again, you can tell the speaker is going through some sort of pain. The pain he was going through while writing this poem was tuberculosis. Henley has had tuberculosis ever since he was young, and has feared of the death that may come from it. When reading this poem Henley wrote in the hospital bed, you can just imagine the fear he is having inside. As the speaker stated, 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., you just imagine the speaker thinking about death. When the speaker talked about the night covering him, it seems as if it is the thought of death since his youth, and the black as the pit, is where he feels he will go. With the fear of death still running through his head, the speaker thanked gods for his unconquerable soul, because he felt they were the reason he was still surviving tuberculosis. In the second stanza the speaker stated, In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but not unbowed.. When he stated that, you could feel the speaker was talking about how tuberculosis has tried to kill him before, and it will keep trying. The speaker tried to not let the fear show on the outside, even though it was bursting on the inside. You can really tell by the details Henley

gave, that the speaker was very tough. When he talked about his head not being unbowed, he was talking about that even though it was taking over his life, he would not let it ruin him completely. The third stanza stated, 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. In this stanza the speaker talked about the life he was living in, that was full of tears coming from people scared to lose him. The shade was the place he would go after he died, and the place he would no longer be able to see all the people there for him at the hospital. Even though the speaker had this for so long, he still hid his fear from everyone, to show them he was unafraid In the last stanza it is written, 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 speaker said this, meaning that it didnt matter how rocky or troubled his past life was, he knew he would die eventually, so he was going to keep living his life the way he wanted to. The theme of Invictus would have to be survival after all the troubles he went through while having tuberculosis. When writing the poem, Henley, used the rhyme format ABAB, meaning every other line rhymed. To make poem more visual, Henley added in some similes such as, Black as the Pit from pole to pole William Ernest Henley did a great job of giving details and thoughts, so the reader could imagine what he was going through. B. Images / Symbolism On the first stanza, the word night (Out of the night that covers me) is used a metaphor for suffering. It is also part of a simile and a hyperbole when the speaker compares the darkness of his suffering to the blackness of a hellish pit stretching from pole to pole (Black as the pit from pole to pole). In the fourth line, the word unconquerable establishes the theme, the will to survive in the face of a severe test, to the title, Invictus. This stanza begins with another metaphor, comparing circumstance to a creature with a deadly grip (In the fell clutch of circumstance). Alliteration occurs in the words clutch, circumstance, and cried, in not and nor, and in bludgeonings, bloody, but, and unbowed.

In the tenth line, the word shade (Looms but the Horror of the shade) is used as a metaphor for death. Menace of the years (And yet the menace of the years) is also a metaphor for growing older. The word strait (It matters not how strait the gate) is used in the thirteenth line of the poem. This means narrow or restricted. IV. References http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lit/history.htm http://www.englishclub.com/english-language-history.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invictus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Henley http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides7/Invictus.html

Reviewed by: Ruth Klaribelle C. Villaceran BSED 3 - English