Poem and Section

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.

[Today we had class outside. The weather was fine--it was sunny and warm and the trees are covered with flowers. The children were delighted: "We should be a picture in a Georgetown advertisement"; "This is my first time in college to have class outside"; "This is what I thought college would really be like." I'm not going to lie: there was some romantic fulfillment for me too--this is what I thought it would be like to teach. In fact, I really just wanted to light a cigarette for effect.]

We read this poem in conjunction with Hannah Arendt. The kids pointed to the poem's acknowledgment of the human condition--part of the narrator is unchanged by everything outside of him. They pointed to the similarities and differences between action in Arendt and in this poem; for instance, here, while action is central, it is not communal. They brought in Arendt's public/private distinction, maintaining that the narrator must have been well formed in the private sphere in order to assert himself as self-confidently as he did in the public. They discussed how the narrator, as a result of the capability each individual has, even in a totalitarian regime, does not give up on the possibility of action. They even brought Hobbes into dialogue with the poem.

Finally, one student opaquely declared that the poem was "very Catholic--you know how Catholics a fond of capitalizing words?" Another student, who has identified herself as Anglican on several occasions, declared that is not only Catholics who capitalize a lot, but all poets.