A Poem by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) A Study Guide | ||||||||||
Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings...© 2009 Type of Work and Year of Publication .......“Invictus" is a lyric poem in four quatrains (four-line stanzas). William Ernest Henley wrote it in 1875 but did not publish it until 1892 in a collection entitled Echoes. .......“Invictus" is Latin for unconquerable, invincible, undefeated. Henley dedicated the poem to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce (1846-1899), a Scottish flour merchant. After Hamilton Bruce's death, published collections of Henley's poems often included either of these dedication lines preceding the poem: “I.M.R.T. Hamilton Bruce" or “In Memoriam R.T.H.B." (“In Memory of Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce"). The surname Hamilton Bruce is sometimes spelled with a hyphen (Hamilton-Bruce). .......The theme of the poem is the will to survive in the face of a severe test. Henley himself faced such a test. 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 (a peg-legged pirate in the Stevenson novel Treasure Island) on Henley. ......."Invictus"
appears in prestigious anthologies, including Modern British Poetry
(New York, Harcourt, 1920). Not a few poetry enthusiasts regard it as an
inspiring work. Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela both recited from
it to stir their listeners. So did Martin Luther King Jr. The Republican
candidate in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, Senator John McCain, committed
it to memory in his youth, according to a New York Times Op-Ed article
by William Kristol (January 21, 2008). In Best Remembered Poems,
Martin Gardner writes, “The poem is a favorite of secular humanists who
see themselves and the human race as unconquerable masters of their
fate in a mindless universe that cares not a fig for what happens to them."
(Mineola, N.Y.: Courier Dover Publications, 1992).
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Study Questions and Essay Topics 1. Read the paragraphs under
"A Poem Praised and Ridiculed." Then write a short
essay arguing that the poem is worthy of praise or deserving of ridicule.
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