June 2nd, 2025: “Invictus” - William Ernest Henley
(Screenshot of poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, written in 1875)
“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.”
A: When talking about this “place of wrath and tears”, Henley and other scholars relate this idea that this place invokes anger and despair that brings you to a deep human low. So even at this low, there looms a “horror of this shade" of nightfall, “yet the menace of the years”… The idea is that even though these things are looming and menacing and brings me into deep areas of devastation, even these things that are “Horrible” and it’s deep, dark, and unnerving, I won’t be scared of the situation I am in. The interesting thing about “Horrible” being capitalized is that Horror cannot be defined because it is extremely subjective to everyone. One person might find something scary that might not be for someone else. Horror in this case should be to invoke the essence of the unknown and to box down the soul. The agreed temporary consensus about the term horror is that it’s something that is “disgusting, vile, and evokes a sense of unease.”
B: It seems to say that even if there’s a bad situation, there’s always something worse.
“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.”
A: Exactly. But even if it’s terrible, I am going to stand unafraid. One of the interest things is that this poem mocks Christianity. Henley wrote about this when it was really hard to conceptualize the separation of church and state in England. The idea that God, or gods, or anything deity-like is in lowercase “g”, and that his soul is unconquerable - which is what “Invictus” means in Latin, “undefeated” or “unconquered” - there are things that are within his control. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” In Christianity, everything is fate and under God’s command. To be a master of your own fate is extremely blasphemous. Your existence starts in heaven and you and your spirit agree with God to come down to Earth as blood and flesh to fulfill God’s plan and then to die. To say that I am the master of my fate is to say that I am taking my own life into my own two hands.
C: It’s crazy because how can you agree with God and do these things anyway?
A: When people initially read the line “It matters not how strait the gate,” it refers to the straits of water and the channel. Like a specific passageway that typically you are able to pass through. “How charged with punishments the scroll” is a more religious allegory for the markings of sin. What’s most interesting is that if you look over the stanza, it always ends on a note of optimism. Every stanza opens in negativity but ends in a better light. When they say “black as the pit from pole to pole,” it just means the entire world. “Under the bludgeonings of chance” is like playing Russian Roulette. The entire second stanza evokes an intense sense of violence. You’re not finding someone dead but you find someone worse for wear.
C: The rationale is that you can never complain because someone else has it worse.
A: Exactly. People say that your trauma should be a lesson to other people and that God will use your story for good.
C: I think the only way to not complain about your suffering is like -
“In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.”
A: Just note that this poem is written in 1875. But the stanza about “under the bludgeonings of chance; my head is bloody, but unbowed” evokes a sense of pride. “And yet the menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid” means that I am not afraid of what stands before me, even if it is horrifying and it is what terrifies me. This might sound so silly, but what terrifies people? For me, my siblings dying.
C: Getting kidnapped by the FBI and being sent to the torture prisons?
D: You guys ever seen “Journey 2 The Mysterious Island”? The part where the bird is trying to eat the bee and the guy is trying to hold onto the girl. But he couldn’t hold her and she falls. They save her, they kiss, happy ending, whatever. But I’m scared that I can never deliver when someone needs it most. Also dying alone, but I’m becoming a pilot, so maybe that’s not an issue.
A: That’s why I like the poem so much. It helped Mandela endure his prison and it’s what he would read to his fellow activist prisoners. Robin Island was one of the most brutal labor prisons in South Africa. He was often charged and seen as a terrorist for wanting to stand up against apartheid. This poem was something he would often share in his discussion circles, much like these. He wanted to show that if he died tomorrow, he died unafraid. When we talk about his legacy, this comes up, besides the fact that they labeled him a violent terrorist. I try to imagine what it would be like to be there.
C: It’s crazy to me that you’d leave your kids but once you come back, you wouldn’t even recognize them.
A: A lot of Mandela’s letters to his family that were saved had a lot of values that he would instill into his children. I learned about Mandela in 2012, the year before he died. That’s when I encountered the poem in 7th grade. In middle school, we were given summer assignments and I essentially had to make a report in Nelson Mandela. I spent two months studying him and writing about him because we were learning about Southern Africa, Southern Asia, and Oceania in that year for social studies. They broke it up geographically by years. The reason I remembered “Invictus” is because the poem was huge on the wall in front of class that our teacher memorized. We never realized why until the teacher told us at the end of the year that it was the poem that Mandela cherished. I just remembered thinking: “27 years… I can’t be left in my room without anything to do for 6 hours but this poem carried him for 27 years?” But the more I started to care about activism, there was more to it than being angry. He could’ve spent 27 years being the most bitter man in all of South Africa, but he still took the time to build a community and become a face in bitter opposition. I know that in Palestine, there was a poem written by someone who endured IDF torture.
C: I think it was Mahmoud Darwish, a quote saying something like “you tried to kill me but I failed to die.”
“Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me ... and I forgot, like you, to die.”
D: I think the poem is great and that it definitely shines with hope but it might not have been everything. It could’ve been a stepping stone. It’s like if your car runs out of gas in the middle of the desert, the poem is like one gallon of petrol that gets you to the closest gas station. Maybe it entertained him for 6 hours but it was crucial enough for him to find a resting place for his optimism.
B: There’s still some defiance in the things written.
“I can’t pay no doctor bills
But whitey’s on the moon
Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still
While whitey’s on the moon
The man just upped my rent last night
Cause whitey’s on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
But whitey’s on the moon
I wonder why he’s upping me?
Cause whitey’s on the moon?”
A: I think that it might seem miniscule, the idea of standing against oppression and resisting things. If I picked from the mantle of things left to fight against - would we have made any difference, or would we have done nothing? But honestly, if Nelson Mandela decided to Uno Reverse Card white people, I probably would’ve agreed - like, double it and give it to the next person. But he didn’t, and I admire him for that… Gil Scott-Heron [an American jazz poet, singer, musician, author, spoken-word performer] wrote a critique about how the US was able to fund a massive project into space but refused to feed its bottom line (see Scott-Heron’s performance “Whitey On the Moon”). I bring it up because Kendrick Lamar said it in the Superbowl, and a lot of people said that he [Lamar] was the first person to say it, and I went into the fetal position. It is heavily America-centric in its critique, but it is interesting because of the fact that the acts of change will not be brought to you in real time. I do feel like many people often conflate the news coverage of protest to the idea that the revolution is being televised (see Scott-Heron’s performance “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”). People talk about when they showcase on the news and how they televise the revolution. My sister in Christ, that’s not what happening
“You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
And skip out for beer during commercials, because
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you
By Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle
And leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams, and Spiro Agnew
To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
The revolution will not be televised”
C: It’s literally doing the opposite. It’s critiquing and showing why people shouldn’t join the revolution.
A: The thing is the US is in constant protest. I check with my friends back home and there’s protest, protest, protest. Why is it not being televised? Guess.
D: Is it because it’s the fall of the American Empire?
A: No, it’s because it’s all white people, not racial minorities. One of the things people were mentioning is that people should be smarter about this, but many African-Americans and Black activists have turned to grassroot forms. Many Black people aren’t going to protests anymore because they’re tired (Black Fatigue). People don’t know about it as much unless they’re in Black protest circles. Black people are tired of trying to be seen, so they stop trying to be seen. In many times, there are worse fates in mind, and people deny, but there really is possibly worse. The protest that is being covered is mostly being framed as annoying and not being taken seriously. But all throughout 2020, when they called Black people violent and looted and shot people - people conflate the idea that news coverage being televised is the revolution. To me, revolution is what fundamentally shapes how and what we view in the world around us, and if you think for a SECOND that we can accept that, that is insane. One of the highlights of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised mentioned how Jackie Kennedy was grieving over the assassination of her husband being brought up (“and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose”), but she was a rich socialite and not a good woman.
C: Obviously you can’t put it on the news because it’ll be connected with the commercials. Especially in social media because of all the advertisements next to all the content.
D: Can I mention how much I hate Bill C-11?
A: As someone who is working on a PhD on information - people read but people do not comprehend. This one girl in my class said that Trump is the master of the library because he underfunds the library. I immediately pointed out the inconsistency of language and how she was misquoting the words. The original quote was talking about classism, elitism, sexism, racism, how you build a supremacist mindset, not how someone is the master of it. Her entire idea is that the master only had to be an idea, which negates the idea that cycles of oppression and things we never see because they will never be broadcast are all around us. And if we do not question what is in front of us or what is being presented in what we see in terms of narrative, especially when I think of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - and if we as librarians, a lot of us who are not critically comprehending and just criticizing everything or just assuming the burden of repression is on the shoulders of something else - the moment it’s gone, they will believe that all the oppression is gone.
For more info, see:
The story of Nelson Mandela - A will that could not be contained: https://humanrights.ca/story/story-nelson-mandela
The poem that kept Nelson Mandela through 27 years in prison: https://cabiojinia.com/the-poem-that-kept-nelson-mandela-through-27-years-in-prison/?srsltid=AfmBOor-NqOCRWuRuBGspTOXIhZihwsbhjIwIu8dQOmUd7Lvt0f14Wtr
Every reference in The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/every-historical-reference-in-gil-scott-herons-the-revolution-will-not-be-televised/
