Child of a Gloucester book retailer and a student of the artist T.E. Earthy colored, Henley got a tubercular illness that later required the removal of one foot. His other leg was spared uniquely through the expertise and radical new strategies for the specialist Joseph Lister.
Compelled to remain in a clinic in Edinburgh for 20 months, he started composing impressionist poetry about emergency clinic life that built up his wonderful fame. A portion of these was distributed in ‘The Cornhill Magazine’ in 1875; the entire grouping showed up in ‘A Book of Verses’ (1888). Dating from a similar period is his most mainstream work, “Invictus” (1875). Subsequent volumes of sections incorporate ‘London Voluntaries’ (1893), ‘Poems’ (1898), ‘Hawthorn and Lavender’ (1899), and For England’s Sake (1900).
Henley’s long, dear kinship with Robert Louis Stevenson started in 1874 when he was still a patient. Stevenson based the character of Long John Silver in ‘Treasure Island’ on his disabled and generous companion.
Reestablished to dynamic life, Henley edited ‘The Magazine of Art’ (1882–86), in which he advocated the craftsmen James McNeill Whistler and Auguste Rodin, and worked at the Encyclopædia Britannica. He became editorial manager of the ‘Scots Observer’ of Edinburgh in 1889. The journal was moved to London in 1891 and turned into the ‘National Observer’.
In spite of the fact that traditionalism in its political viewpoint, it was liberal in its abstract taste and distributed crafted by Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, James Barrie, William Butler Yeats, and Rudyard Kipling. As an editorial manager, Henley was recalled by youthful journalists as an altruistic harasser, liberal in his advancement and consolation of obscure gifts and savage in his assaults on outlandish notorieties. The generous, pragmatist and settler authors especially connected with Henley during the 1890s were viewed as an option in contrast to the Decadent journalists of the period.
A Short Biography of William Ernest Henley
Ernest Henley was born on 23rd August 1849. He was born in Gloucester, England. His parents were William and Mary Morgan. He was a bookseller while his mother descended from a family of poets. Earnest Henley had five more siblings and he was the eldest among them. His father died in 1868.
Henley joined the Crypt School in Gloucester in 1861. He remained a student there till 1867. In those days, Thomas Edward Brown was the headmaster of the school. He was appointed by a commission in order to revive the school. He was a brilliant and skilled academician. When Henley came under his supervision, he not only encouraged but improved his skills of poetic works to an extent.
Henley completed his degree in LLD from the University of Saint Andrews. After struggling for two years, Henley could not get a job of a lectureship at the University of Edinburgh.
Henley suffered badly from tuberculosis since the age of 12. This disease resulted in cutting down his left leg below the knee in 1869. Thus, these early years of his life were marked by extreme pains due to his disease.
Henley could not complete his schooling due to his illness. Another reason for his failure to complete education was that his father had faced severe financial blows. Henley passed the Oxford Local Schools Examination in 1867. Later on, he shifted to London. He wanted to become a journalist. He worked for eight years but these periods were highly interrupted because of his frequent admissions into hospitals. In the meantime, the disease affected his right foot as well. He had spent three years in the hospital. He was treated by famous 19th-century surgeon Joseph Lister at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. During this period, Robert Louis Stevenson and Leslie Stephen would visit him and he would show them his own poetry.
He had to struggle his whole life with the differences between physical and mental appearances. He was creatively imaginative but physically he had a crumbled personality due to his health issues.
He married Hannah Johnson Boyle in 1878. Hannah was born in Stirling. She was the daughter of Edward Boyle. She was his youngest daughter. Her father was a mechanical engineer in Edinburgh. It is recorded that in 1891, the couple was living with their daughter Margaret Emma Henley. She was born in 1888. They were living in 11 Howard Place in Edinburgh.
Like father, Margaret, too, suffered from health issues. She could not speak properly and was a sick child. This sickly child died in 1894 when she was only six years old.
Once he recovered in hospital, Henley started his career as a publisher and a journalist in London. He earned a good amount as well as good wealth. This made him an influential person in Victorian England. He was the editor of a series of literary magazines. He also presented many commentaries for various works published.
In London, he provided for the world ‘The New Arabian Nights’ of Stevenson. Henley himself contributed a progression of poetic works mostly in old French structures. He had been composing verse since 1872, yet he ended up around 1877 so absolutely unmarketable that he had to claim himself beaten in craftsmanship. It was to someone who is addicted to reporting for the following ten years.
When London collapsed, he edited the ‘Magazine of Art’ from 1882 to 1886. Toward the end of that period, he came into fame as a poet. In 1887 Gleeson White made for the well-known arrangement of ‘Canterbury Poets’, a choice of sonnets in old French structures. In his determination, Gleeson White included numerous pieces from London, and simply subsequent to finishing the choice did he find that the sections were all by Henley.
In the next year, HB Donkin in his volume Voluntaries incorporated Henley’s unrhymed rhythms Quinta-essentializing the artist’s recollections of the old Edinburgh Infirmary. Alfred Nutt read these, and requested more; and in 1888 his firm distributed ‘A Book of Verse’.
Henley was at this point notable inside a confined scholarly circle, and the distribution of this volume decided his distinction as an artist. It quickly grew out of these cutoff points, two new releases of the volume being printed inside three years.
He also got appointed to edit ‘The London Magazine’ in 1877. Though this was for relatively short time it gave him good exposure. During this period, he also wrote a number of poems and many of them got anonymously published in various magazines.
Henley was made the editor of the ‘Scots Observer’ in 1889. It was a journal of arts and current events in Edinburgh. They shifted the headquarters of this journal to London in 1891. In London it became ‘National Observer’ and Henley remained its editor till 1893.
Henley fell down from a railway carriage in 1902. This caused his tuberculosis to flare up. Resultantly, he died in 1903. He died at his home in Surrey when he was 53 years old. After his death, his wife moved to 213 West Campbell-St, Glasgow.
William Ernest Henley’s Writing Style
His Works Mirror as Delegates of Adversity
He has spent his life battling with different things, particularly his struggle for his health. This has shown him a grim and bleak picture of life. These struggles resulted in becoming the pivotal point in his works. For example, his poem “Invictus,” is a delegate of Adversity. This poem is about the uplifting disposition and endurance of an individual who stays persistent and undefeated regardless of how negative the circumstance is. It additionally urges readers to be honorable and decided. The statements of pride, energy, and fulfillment proceed consistently in the second part of the verses. Notwithstanding, what captivates the readers is the unfaltering fearlessness and continuance of the speaker during his sufferings.
Major Themes
The majority of his poems contain the themes of fighting against the pangs and pains of life and misery. For example, the poem ‘Invictus’ involves musings of a grown-up whose life is overpowered by hopelessness and agony. However, he realizes that the best method for fighting these circumstances is a solid will. He further says that his hopeless life can’t overcome his spirit, as he isn’t apprehensive about the difficulties and sufferings. He stays positive, made, unbowed, and unafraid in each troublesome circumstance. His good faith makes him the ace of his destiny and the chief of his spirit.
Metaphor
Henley had used a number of metaphors in his poems. The interesting thing is that he has used these metaphors in his poems on different levels. For example ‘Invictus’ in which Henley has utilized three representations in the poem. To start with, the title “Invictus” portrays torment. The subsequent representation is utilized in the primary line as out of the night that covers me. Here night speaks to dull occasions and hardships of the artist. The third analogy is in the third refrain lingers yet the loathsomeness of the shade. Here shade alludes to concealed future or up and coming difficulties.
Form and Structure
William Ernest Henley’s poetic works are mostly written in iambic tetrameter. For example “Invictus” is written in versifying tetrameter, implying that it has four bits or worries in each line with a rhyming calculation in all the four refrains of the poem. Incidental spondees hone up the consistent beat in this work. The writer has kept the entire structure of this work in a tight configuration having the rhyme plan of abab cdcd efef ghgh.
Each quatrain in this work depicts the speaker’s very own point of view in handling circumstances even with difficulty. The writer needed to pass on one general message in this work. It is regardless of what life tosses at you, regardless of how terrible it is, never under any circumstance let it disintegrate you and get you down. The writer expressed the colossal quality of the human soul in the profundities of difficulty and showed how in the darkest of times. It is in any event when your own destiny is against you, the human soul is sufficiently able to withstand all the torment and battle and push through.