Rudyard Kipling

Greatness—Laudation & (true) Controversy

Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936 Born in Bombay, India First language was Hindi “Ruddy” was an adult

nickname: dark-complexioned, it was whispered that he was part Indian.

Never accepted in ‘society’ (Queen Victoria may have disliked him), his outsider status (& certain life events) made him a rara arbis: a high literary genius with vox populi

Kipling’s literary & cultural footprint

Kipling’s literary & cultural footprint

Rudyard Kipling: in the language

“Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleepIs cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bitIs five times better business than paradin' in full kit.”

• “….the flannelled fools at the wicket and the muddied oafs at the goal.”

• “East is East, and West is West, & never the twain shall meet.”

• “What do they know of England who only England know?”

• “The female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

• “The white man’s burden.”

Critical Estimation & Controversy Imperially-minded:

sees England bringing improvement to its colonies.

A jingoistic view of England vis a vis other countries

Patriotism blending into nationalism

Did not shirk portrayals of violence:

equally gifted at literary realism and fantasy.

Andro-centric: literature of boys, men, and

masculinity.

George Orwell wrote a powerful (though cautionary) defense of Kipling’s vernacular genius, literary merit, and social perception.

Perennially popular in India. Sole authentic portrait and

voice of the speech and life of the 19th C. soldier.

A non- (even an anti-) Capitalist.

Could not recognise (a perceptual blindness) the financial nature of Empire

Disrespectful of authority: at times, anarchic.

Kipling: both one & the other Kipling was unfulfilled, personally, in either Indian

or English culture His fulfillment came in a movement between and

across the two. He was unsettled in any social class—English or

Indian. These biographical facts are an explanadum for

his art: Like quantum phenomena, his poetry and fiction resist

attempts to fix definite moral or aesthetic location—Kipling is the bad and the good together, & both are the source of the other’s power.