Rudyard Kipling: Poems Rudyard Kipling

In 2002, Kipling's Just So Stories featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to mark the centenary of the publication of the book.[127] In 2010, the International Astronomical Union approved the naming of a crater on the planet Mercury after Kipling – one of ten newly discovered impact craters observed by the MESSENGER spacecraft in 2008–2009.[128] In 2012, an extinct species of crocodile, Goniopholis kiplingi, was named in his honour "in recognition for his enthusiasm for natural sciences."[129] More than 50 unpublished poems by Kipling, discovered by the American scholar Thomas Pinney, were released for the first time in March 2013.[130]

Kipling's writing has strongly influenced that of others. His stories for adults remain in print and have garnered high praise from writers as different as Poul Anderson, Jorge Luis Borges, and Randall Jarrell, who wrote: "After you have read Kipling's fifty or seventy-five best stories you realize that few men have written this many stories of this much merit, and that very few have written more and better stories."[131]

His children's stories remain popular and his Jungle Books made into several films. The first was made by producer Alexander Korda. Other films have been produced by The Walt Disney Company. A number of his poems were set to music by Percy Grainger. A series of short films based on some of his stories was broadcast by the BBC in 1964.[132] Kipling's work is still popular today.

The poet T. S. Eliot edited A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1941) with an introductory essay.[133] Eliot was aware of the complaints that had been levelled against Kipling and he dismissed them one by one: that Kipling is "a Tory" using his verse to transmit right wing political views, or "a journalist" pandering to popular taste; while Eliot writes: "I cannot find any justification for the charge that he held a doctrine of race superiority."[134] Eliot finds instead:

An immense gift for using words, an amazing curiosity and power of observation with his mind and with all his senses, the mask of the entertainer, and beyond that a queer gift of second sight, of transmitting messages from elsewhere, a gift so disconcerting when we are made aware of it that thenceforth we are never sure when it is not present: all this makes Kipling a writer impossible wholly to understand and quite impossible to belittle.

— T. S. Eliot[135]

Of Kipling's verse, such as his Barrack-Room Ballads, Eliot writes "of a number of poets who have written great poetry, only... a very few whom I should call great verse writers. And unless I am mistaken, Kipling's position in this class is not only high, but unique."[136]

In response to Eliot, George Orwell wrote a long consideration of Kipling's work for Horizon in 1942, noting that although as a "jingo imperialist" Kipling was "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting", his work had many qualities which ensured that while "every enlightened person has despised him... nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there.":

One reason for Kipling's power [was] his sense of responsibility, which made it possible for him to have a world-view, even though it happened to be a false one. Although he had no direct connexion with any political party, Kipling was a Conservative, a thing that does not exist nowadays. Those who now call themselves Conservatives are either Liberals, Fascists or the accomplices of Fascists. He identified himself with the ruling power and not with the opposition. In a gifted writer this seems to us strange and even disgusting, but it did have the advantage of giving Kipling a certain grip on reality. The ruling power is always faced with the question, 'In such and such circumstances, what would you do?', whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions. Where it is a permanent and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought deteriorates accordingly. Moreover, anyone who starts out with a pessimistic, reactionary view of life tends to be justified by events, for Utopia never arrives and 'the gods of the copybook headings', as Kipling put it, always return. Kipling sold out to the British governing class, not financially but emotionally. This warped his political judgement, for the British ruling class were not what he imagined, and it led him into abysses of folly and snobbery, but he gained a corresponding advantage from having at least tried to imagine what action and responsibility are like. It is a great thing in his favour that he is not witty, not 'daring', has no wish to épater les bourgeois. He dealt largely in platitudes, and since we live in a world of platitudes, much of what he said sticks. Even his worst follies seem less shallow and less irritating than the 'enlightened' utterances of the same period, such as Wilde's epigrams or the collection of cracker-mottoes at the end of Man and Superman.

— George Orwell[137]

In 1939, the poet W. H. Auden celebrated Kipling in a similarly ambiguous way in his elegy for William Butler Yeats. Auden deleted this section from more recent editions of his poems.

Time, that is intolerant Of the brave and innocent, And indifferent in a week To a beautiful physique, Worships language, and forgives Everyone by whom it lives; Pardons cowardice, conceit, Lays its honours at his feet. Time, that with this strange excuse, Pardons Kipling and his views, And will pardon Paul Claudel, Pardons him for writing well.[138]

The poet Alison Brackenbury writes "Kipling is poetry's Dickens, an outsider and journalist with an unrivalled ear for sound and speech."[139]

The English folk singer Peter Bellamy was a lover of Kipling's poetry, much of which he believed to have been influenced by English traditional folk forms. He recorded several albums of Kipling's verse set to traditional airs, or to tunes of his own composition written in traditional style.[140] However, in the case of the bawdy folk song, "The Bastard King of England", which is commonly credited to Kipling, it is believed that the song is actually misattributed.[141]

Kipling often is quoted in discussions of contemporary British political and social issues. In 1911, Kipling wrote the poem "The Reeds of Runnymede" that celebrated Magna Carta, and summoned up a vision of the "stubborn Englishry" determined to defend their rights. In 1996, the following verses of the poem were quoted by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warning against the encroachment of the European Union on national sovereignty:

At Runnymede, at Runnymede, Oh, hear the reeds at Runnymede: 'You musn't sell, delay, deny, A freeman's right or liberty. It wakes the stubborn Englishry, We saw 'em roused at Runnymede! ... And still when Mob or Monarch lays Too rude a hand on English ways, The whisper wakes, the shudder plays, Across the reeds at Runnymede. And Thames, that knows the mood of kings, And crowds and priests and suchlike things, Rolls deep and dreadful as he brings Their warning down from Runnymede![142]

Political singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, who attempts to build a left-wing English nationalism in contrast with the more common right-wing English nationalism, has attempted to 'reclaim' Kipling for an inclusive sense of Englishness.[143] Kipling's enduring relevance has been noted in the United States, as it has become involved in Afghanistan and other areas about which he wrote.[144][145][146]

Links with camping and scouting

In 1903, Kipling gave permission to Elizabeth Ford Holt to borrow themes from the Jungle Books to establish Camp Mowglis, a summer camp for boys on the shores of Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. Throughout their lives, Kipling and his wife Carrie maintained an active interest in Camp Mowglis, which still continues the traditions that Kipling inspired. Buildings at Mowglis have names such as Akela, Toomai, Baloo, and Panther. The campers are referred to as "the Pack", from the youngest "Cubs" to the oldest living in "Den".[147]

Kipling's links with the Scouting movements were also strong. Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouting, used many themes from Jungle Book stories and Kim in setting up his junior Wolf Cubs. These ties still exist, such as the popularity of "Kim's Game". The movement is named after Mowgli's adopted wolf family, and adult helpers of Wolf Cub (now Cub Scout) Packs take names from The Jungle Book, especially the adult leader called Akela after the leader of the Seeonee wolf pack.[148]

Kipling's Burwash home

After the death of Kipling's wife in 1939, his house, Bateman's in Burwash, East Sussex, where he had lived from 1902 until 1936, was bequeathed to the National Trust. It is now a public museum dedicated to the author. Elsie Bambridge, his only child who lived to maturity, died childless in 1976, and bequeathed her copyrights to the National Trust, which in turn donated them to the University of Sussex to ensure better public access.[150]

Novelist and poet Sir Kingsley Amis wrote a poem, "Kipling at Bateman's", after visiting Burwash (where Amis's father lived briefly in the 1960s) as part of a BBC television series on writers and their houses.[151]

In 2003, actor Ralph Fiennes read excerpts from Kipling's works from the study in Bateman's, including The Jungle Book, Something of Myself, Kim, and The Just So Stories, and poems, including "If ..." and "My Boy Jack", for a CD published by the National Trust.[152][153]

Reputation in India

In modern-day India, whence he drew much of his material, Kipling's reputation remains controversial, especially among modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics. It has long been alleged that Rudyard Kipling was a prominent supporter of Colonel Reginald Dyer, who was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar (in the province of Punjab), and that Kipling called Dyer "the man who saved India" and initiated collections for the latter's homecoming prize.[154] Kim Wagner, senior lecturer in British Imperial History at Queen Mary University of London, says that while Kipling did make a £10 donation, he never made that remark.[155] Similarly, author Derek Sayer states that Dyer was "widely lauded as the saviour of Punjab", that Kipling had no part in organizing The Morning Post fund, and that Kipling only sent £10, making the laconic observation: "He did his duty, as he saw it."[156] Subhash Chopra also writes in his book Kipling Sahib – the Raj Patriot that the benefit fund was started by The Morning Post newspaper, not by Kipling.[157] The Economic Times attributes the phrase "The Man Who Saved India" along with the Dyer benefit fund to The Morning Post as well.[158]

Many contemporary Indian intellectuals such as Ashis Nandy have a nuanced view of Kipling's legacy. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, often described Kipling's novel Kim as one of his favourite books.[159][160]

G. V. Desani, an Indian writer of fiction, had a more negative opinion of Kipling. He alludes to Kipling in his novel All About H. Hatterr:

I happen to pick up R. Kipling's autobiographical Kim. Therein, this self-appointed whiteman's burden-bearing sherpa feller's stated how, in the Orient, blokes hit the road and think nothing of walking a thousand miles in search of something.

Indian writer Khushwant Singh wrote in 2001 that he considers Kipling's "If—" "the essence of the message of The Gita in English",[161] referring to the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Indian scripture. Indian writer R. K. Narayan said: "Kipling, the supposed expert writer on India, showed a better understanding of the mind of the animals in the jungle than of the men in an Indian home or the marketplace."[162] The Indian politician and writer Shashi Tharoor commented "Kipling, that flatulent voice of Victorian imperialism, would wax eloquent on the noble duty to bring law to those without it".[163]

In November 2007, it was announced that Kipling's birth home in the campus of the J. J. School of Art in Bombay would be turned into a museum celebrating the author and his works.[164]