Rudyard Kipling: Biography and Major Works

About Rudyard Kipling

• Rudyard Kipling was an English writer known for works like The Jungle Book, Kim, and the poem "If."
• He was a poet, novelist, and short story writer, born in Bombay, India, on December 30, 1865, under British rule.
• At age five, Kipling moved to England for his education
• He was mistreated by foster parents, making adjustment hard.
• He became the editor of his school newspaper at a Devon boarding school.
• Kipling returned to India in 1882 and worked in the newspaper industry while starting his literary career.
• His early works include Department Ditties and other Verses and Plain Tales from the Hills.
• In the early 1890s, Kipling was recognized as a poet and published in the National Observer, later compiled into Barrack-Room Ballads.
• He became a revered poet of the British Empire, focusing on soldiers in his works like Barrack-Room Ballads and Soldiers Three.
• Kipling married Caroline Balestier in 1892 and moved to Vermont, where he wrote The Jungle Book and Kim.
• He returned to England in 1896 and published Captain Courageous.
• Kipling visited South Africa extensively and wrote Just-So Stories during the Boer War.
• Kipling settled in Sussex with his family in 1992 and continued writing until his death on January 18, 1936.
• Important works include The Seven Seas, The Day’s Work, Trafficks and Discoveries, Debits and Credits, and Thy Servant a Dog.
• Kipling received the Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1926 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.

About the Poem "IF"

• "If" appeared in Kipling's 1910 collection Rewards and Fairies.
• The poem's inspiration came from the Jameson Raid of 1895, a military action during the Boer War in South Africa.
• The Jameson Raid, led by Leander Starr Jameson, spurred patriotism in England despite its failure.
• Kipling was moved by the patriotic feelings from the raid and penned "If."
• The poem is a motivational piece in Western literature, praising noble human virtues and engraved at Wimbledon's Centre Court.
• Poet Wayne Dyer has said that the poem inspires him to be a better person when reading it.

Setting of "IF"

• The poem lacks a physical setting, but can be visualized as a father imparting life lessons to his son.
• The relationship has universal validity.
• The setting assumes a larger universal space where moral philosophies are shared.

Mood of "IF"

• The poem's mood is didactic and serious but also motivational because it provides a blueprint for personal integrity and self-development.
• Urgency and sublimity in Kipling's writing style infuse the poem with inspiration.
• "If" serves as guidelines for living with integrity, covering different life situations.

Summary and Analysis of "IF"

• Keep your head: Maintain calmness and composure.
• Losing theirs: Refers to losing one's calm and composure.
• Make Allowance: Accommodate and consider others.
• Don't give way to hating: Avoid feeling hatred.
• The first stanza advises maintaining composure during crises, combatting the urge to put blame on others, and having courage to take responsibility.
• In times of crisis, people are expected to lose their rationality.
• Have enough confidence to believe in self potential, even if others have given up on you.
• Self-faith is a virtue.
• Confidence is a must, but not blind faith because openness is needed to listen to recommendations of others.
• Patience is advocated
• Monumental things take time.
• Avoid dealing with lies to avoid sinking to the level of gossipmongers.
• Shun inclinations toward abnormal self-regard.

Poetic Devices: Stanza 1

• "If you can keep your head": Is an instance of synecdoche, where abstractions (calmness and composure) are replaced by the concrete "head."
• "When all men...": Is an instance of synecdoche, where "men" represents all of humanity.

IIF Summary and Analysis by Rudyard Kipling

• Make dreams your master: Allow your dreams, i.e. your wants and desires from life to take control over you
• Make thoughts your aim: Becoming so rigid about one's opinions and thoughts that you cannot take suggestions
• Impostors: A person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others
• Knaves: Dishonest men
• The second stanza of If explains pursuing one's goals, differentiating between ambition and megalomania.
• Be ambitious, but do not let desires control you or change who you are.
• Practice moderation when being ambitious.
• Avoid a rigid way of thinking.
• Success and Failure are a part of life and temporary.
• Treat both success and failure the same.
• The road to success is never easy, filled with people who might break your moral.
• Do not let the mind games of such people hinder you.
• Develop the power to start from scratch after facing failures.

Poetic Devices: Stanza 2

• "Not make dreams your master": Is Personification. A dream is given the attribute of being someone's master.
• Triumph and Disaster/ And treat those two impostors just the same: Is Personification. Abstractions are personified as impostors.
• Hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves: Extended metaphor comparing truth to a flexible object that can be twisted.
• Worn-out tools: Metaphor for weakened human potential for creation after facing failures.
• Or watch the things you gave your life to: Hyperbole

Summary and Analysis of "IF"

• Pitch and toss: A game based on luck in which you have equal chances of winning or losing
• Sinew: That tissue of the body which unites the muscle and the bone
• Serve your own: Work for you or in your favor
• Put all of life's achievements at risk, aiming towards bigger goals.
• Muster immense strength of mind to shake of a loss in order to keep going.
• The only key to persistence is having great will power.
• Determination is needed in even the down trodden times.

Poetic Devices: Stanza 3

• If you can make one heap of all your winnings/And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss:
  • The first line uses vision, showing the image of stacking achievements in a heap
  • Success is compared to a gambling game.
  • Periphrasis to say that people can only be successful by taking risks.
• The terms heart, nerve and sinew are metaphors for human potential and caliber used within the line If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew/To serve your turn long after they are gone
• Will has been personified in Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on: to suggest that the will is providing human dialogue

Summary and Analysis of "IF"

• Keep your virtue: Keep your good qualities intact
• Common touch: Common touch here implies modesty and a down to earth attitude
• Men count with you: Men give you respect and regard
• Unforgiving minute: If you waste time, it never forgives you.
• It is the author's message about how to maintain an ideal in life in the wake of of success.
• Individuals are encouraged to move around with individuals from seamless walks of life.
• Individuality must be maintained, people will stand out despite being apart of a crowd.
• Arrogance should be avoided along with compassion.
• Modesty is a must as well as dependability

Poetic Devices: Stanza 4

• Or walk with kings: Here Kings is an instance of synecdoche to represent people from higher classes.
• Unforgiving Minute: The term minute is personified and referred to being unforgiving,
• Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it: This expresses hyperbole by suggesting than an individual can achieve their goals in life.

Form and Structure

• The structure of "If" is taut, neat, symmetrical.
• It has four identical stanzas of eight lines each, totaling thirty-two lines.
• The meter follows iambic pentameter, dividing each line into five feet with alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.
• Meter creates a sense of cohesion and order.

Rhyme Scheme

• AAAABCBC: 1st stanza
• ABABCDCD: 2nd, 3rd and 4th Stanza

Central Idea

• Life is only meaningful when lived with virtue, guided by moral codes.
• Rudyard Kipling's "If" serves as a blueprint for qualities and virtues needed to be a complete human being and achieve true success.
• It advocates for composure, patience, integrity, modesty, control, perseverance, tolerance, determination, and confidence.

Themes

• Virtue to live successfully based on valuing integrity, rightful behavior and virtue.
• Maintaining calm, composing and handling crises.
• Steer clear of brewing hatred, maintain proper standings after promotions/ setbacks.
• Modesty must be practiced even with the best set of virtues.