19 pages • 38 minutes read
William Ernest HenleyInvictus
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1889A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“If” by Rudyard Kipling (1895)
Written by one of the young poets Henley mentored as an editor and clearly influenced by the wide appeal of “Invictus,” “If,” like “Invictus,” is an inspirational poem designed for public recitation. The poem, full of advice, seeks to guide readers to living a quiet and humble life without complaining or whining, with a dignity and stoic self-discipline that echoes Henley’s wisdom.
“Crossing the Bar” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1889)
Written by the most influential and popular wisdom poets of the Victorian era, “Crossing the Bar,” written when Tennyson himself was near death, counsels to live with a calm and certain dignity so that when death approaches, which the poem compares to a ship departing a harbor and heading out to sea, the person can face that moment with serenity and confidence without relying on God to make it all easier.
“Courage” by Anne Sexton (1974)
Ironic, perhaps, to suggest important parallels between Henley’s poem of perseverance and a poem by a promising young poet who died by suicide. The Sexton poem, however, argues how difficult life can be and how the only way to face such adversity is through quiet courage and stoic discipline. Indeed, the language of the poem is pointedly inspirational, almost as if Sexton were encouraging herself (she drafted the poem just months before her suicide). Only, perhaps, when she lost Henley’s spirit of resistance to adversity was she unable to face her own adversity.
Other Literary Resources
“Unconquerable Heroes: ‘Invictus.’ Redemption, and the Cultural Politics of Narrative” by Alice Cree (2019)
A cultural study of the Invictus Games, which since 2014, have been an international sports competition for wounded veterans. This essay applies the themes of “Invictus” and Henley, who had a leg amputated, and his struggle against tuberculosis to suggest how the poem has created a global narrative of adversity and personal triumph.
“Reflection of William Ernest Henley’s Own Life through the Poem ‘Invictus’” by S. M. Faisal Arafat (2019)
A unique essay that returns Henley himself to an analysis of the poem. The investigation suggests that in allowing the poem to speak for a wide variety of narratives of challenge and spiritual victory, Henley himself has been overlooked. The analysis asks how a poet as prolific as Henley has come to be defined entirely by this single brief poem and suggests it is because of the deeply personal narrative the poem offers into Henley’s own life.
William Ernest Henley: A Study in the Counter-Decadence of the Nineties by Jerome Hamilton Buckley (1945)
A major book-length study of Henley, and still the go-to study, and his nearly two decades-long critical argument with the rising generation of Decadent poets. In its chapter on “Invictus,” which provides a line-by-line explication of Henley’s moral code of stoicism, singles out this poem as the embodiment of what the Decadent poets such as Wilde and Rossetti rejected as the template for poetry.
Listen to Poem
The temptation might be to select Freeman’s reading of the poem, available on YouTube, for several reasons: The poem was actually read at the state funeral for Nelson Mandela; Mandela frequently cited how he recited the poem from memory to keep up his spirits during his 20+ years of incarceration for leading the resistance to apartheid in South Africa; the sports film based on the improbable victory of the South African soccer team in the immediate aftermath of the dismantling of apartheid (titled Invictus), in which the role of Mandela was played by Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman. Indeed, Freeman’s voice is wonderfully gravelly, as if he is struggling against a great weight. But oddly Freeman changes critical words in the poem (for instance “fate” for “chance” in Line 7), which alters the meaning of the poem. A more faithful recitation can be found on YouTube by veteran British actor Tom Hiddleston, who finds heroic eloquence in lingering over the pauses between the stanzas.
