Cummings Study Guide

.......“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.

Title and Dedication

.......“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).

Theme

.......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.

A Poem Praised and Ridiculed

......."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).
.......Nevertheless, many critics ridicule the poem as mediocre at best, and most modern anthologies refuse to admit it to their pages. One reason for the snubbing is the poem's seemingly melodramatic tone, like that of a windy politician declaiming from a soapbox. Another reason is its singsong versification.
.......However, the poem lives on despite the criticism and despite its disappearance from poetry texts. For one thing, it has a ring that makes it quotable, a quality lacking in many rhymeless verses today. (Musicality was a sine qua non of many great nineteenth-century poets, including Poe, Tennyson, and Wordsworth.) For another, it is unabashedly straightforward in an age when poets lard their verses with prolix ambiguity and nebulous allusions.
.......So is “Invictus”good or bad?
.......Jazz composer Duke Ellington (1899-1974) has been quoted as saying of music, “If it sounds good, it is good.” To some poetry enthusiasts, “Invictus” is a rousing paean; to others, it is just noise.

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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.
2. What is the meaning of chance (line 7)?
3..The word charged (line 14) has several meanings. What does the author intend it to mean?
3. Do you believe that you are the master of your fate (line 15)? Or do your genes, your environment, and other factors place your fate outside of your control? Present your opinion in a short essay.