invictus

Latin adjective, "unconquered, unsubdued, invincible," from in- "not, opposite of" (see in- (1)) + victus, past participle of vincere "to conquer, overcome" (from nasalized form of PIE root *weik- (3) "to fight, conquer").

ANALYSIS: One of the most curious things about the poem is that its stoic message makes no mention of Christianity. This does not mean, of course, that it is anti-religious or even non-religious, merely that Henley’s poem does not touch upon such things, aside from that casual reference to ‘whatever gods may be’, which allows for a pagan or polytheistic interpretation, given the plural ‘gods’. In an age where other celebrated poems about striving and struggling – Arthur Hugh Clough’s ‘Say not the struggle nought availeth’ being a well-known example – tended to hint at the idea that God and heaven were a reward for earthly toil and hardship, Henley places his poem firmly in the here and now, for all its talk of a ‘soul’ and ‘fate’. Indeed, these things are mentioned only for the poet to assert his dominance and control over them: ‘I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.’ That repeated assertion of the self, and of the self’s agency, is an affirmation of Henley’s autonomy.

And then consider how the lines ‘Beyond this place of wrath and tears / Looms but the Horror of the shade’ do not make room for the afterlife (‘but the Horror’), suggesting that death leads to darkness and nothing more. Yet life, too, can be a realm of blackness and darkness: ‘Out of the night that covers me, / Black as the pit from pole to pole.’ Is this black ‘night’ a reference to depression? ‘Invictus’ seems to be not simply about coping with a physical condition – the loss of a leg at a young age, owing to tuberculosis – but a mental one, too. If depression makes one feel that one has lost control over one’s life, the assertion in the final two lines of ‘Invictus’ are a declaration that the poet intends to take back self-control, or at least announce his determined attempt to do so.

The poem introduced a couple of famous phrases into the language: ‘bloody, but unbowed’, and the final two lines: ‘I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.’ Like Kipling’s ‘If’, it became popular with readers and has remained reasonably popular because it offers a stoic approach to life’s hardships.

Henley by all accounts exuded a masculine strength and vigour (and had a large red beard and a hearty laugh). Although it often doesn’t pay to be too reductive in terms of offering a biographical analysis of poetry, ‘Invictus’ was almost certainly inspired – at least in part – by Henley’s loss of the lower half of his left leg: he would remain ‘unbowed’ and ‘unconquered’ by this physical setback. Clint Eastwood’s 2009 film about the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa is named Invictus after the poem, and for good reason: Nelson Mandela recited the poem to his fellow prisoners while he was incarcerated on Robben Island.