Net soos die film Four weddings and a funeral ‘n bykans vergete gedig van WH Auden weer bekend gemaak het, is die film Invictus besig om William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) se gelyknamige gedig wêreldberoemd te maak, aangesien dit die gedig is wat deur Madiba in die film aan Springbokkaptein Francois Pienaar oorhandig word en die Springbokke sodanig inspireer dat hulle die wêreldbeker met dié onsterflike reëls op tong en gemoed verower. En natuurlik wemel die internet van verwyswings en aanhalings van dié inspirerende vers, maar eie aan die aard van die kuberruim, is nie almal ewe ingenome met die gedig nie.
Op sy blog skryf Jay Harvey soos volg oor Henley se gedig: “There’s a certain kind of poem that’s forthright in what it has to proclaim, but so lacking in detail and some kind of vivifying context for its assertions that it amounts to a closed-circuit interior monologue. It seems bent on winning over the reader to the speaker’s (read, perhaps, “the poet’s) tight little viewpoint. “Invictus” pits the speaker against “the fell clutch of circumstance” and various dire threats, including death, and demands that we admire his courage and steadfastness. How does such rigid, robotic poetry become famous? Because it captures attitudes people like to entertain with so little ambiguity that it can seem the last word on the matter.”
Volgens hom is Henley se “Invictus” waarskynlik een van die swakste gedigte wat nog ooit geskryf is. Nadat hy ‘n rits ander voorbeeld van sentimentele en melodramatiese gedigte beskou het, kom hy tot die volgende slotsom: “Poet collars the reader, thumps him on the head with a thin but irritating message, and departs in a cloud of smugness.”
En ja, soos gebruiklik plaas ek die betrokke gedig onder aan die Nuuswekker vanoggend sodat jy self kan oordeel.
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Nuut op die webblad is Philip de Vos se stuk oor ou skooljaarblaaie, wenopstelle en ‘n fiets en ook Melanie Grobler se brief oor vandeesmaand se blogfokus. Lekker lees en onthou om ook jóú brief te skryf oor hoe dit gebeur het dat die digkuns vir jou meer is as ‘n terloopse belangstelling.
Mooi bly.
LE
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
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.
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.
© William Ernest Henley (1849 – 1903)