“Invictus” seeks to teach. Whether instruction is what a poem ought to do is a debate as old as art itself: Is it enough for any artifact of the creative imagination—whether a poem or a symphony or a painting—to be beautiful, to move a person emotionally, or should that artifact serve a function? Should it inform and improve the moral and ethical lives of those who engage it? Should art be or should art mean?

The establishment poets of the Victorian Era, among them Henley certainly but also Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and Rudyard Kipling, regarded poetry as a moral force, which, given its wide readership at the time, should move readers to live better lives. It should also inspire them to regard life as an evolutionary process in which poetry could help direct them to more profitable, more rewarding lives by using the fetching forms of rhythm and rhyme to gift the reader with wisdom. Poetry was therefore a direct conversation with a wide audience.

There was, however, a formidable challenge to that imperative, a challenge that Henley, in his position as editor and critic, perceived as both immediate and dire.