Rudyard Kipling's 'If': Fatherhood, Masculinity and Legacy Through Time (Transcript)
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Maiya: [00:00:00] If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.

Joe: Welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by the team at Poemanalysis.com. I'm Joe, and I'm here with my co host Maiya, who was just reading from Rudyard Kipling's very famous poem, If, and we're going to be discussing the poem today, as well as Kipling's legacy, fathers and sons, and the impact of Victorian ideals upon the poem.

But, Maiya, first and foremost, do you mind telling us a little bit about Kipling himself and who he was?

Maiya: Of course. So, Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. He was born in 1865 in India and died in 1936. He won a Nobel Prize for Literature in around 1907 *but* was successful commercially, really, from [00:01:00] as early as 1889, 1890. So, Joe, tell us a little bit more about the poem's background that we're talking about today.

Joe: So the poem was written around 1895, so as you said, Maiya, Rudyard Kipling had already achieved massive commercial success in the years prior to this, so he was a big name. The poem itself wasn't actually published until 1910, and those 15 years are going to prove significant, and we'll talk a little bit about that later on, but

the poem itself is actually relatively simple. It adopts the voice of a father, often said to be Kipling himself, speaking to a son. Now, in 1895, Kipling's son John, who the poem is often associated with, wasn't actually born yet, but he had obviously been born by the time the poem was published in 1910.

And effectively, the poem is a series of hypotheticals that the son can match up to in order to become a man, and I use that in inverted commas.

So some of these archetypal characteristics, these hypotheticals are very abstract, so this notion, as Maiya read earlier on, of meeting with triumph and disaster is quite an abstract thing. Others are very [00:02:00] simple, this notion of walking with kings and not losing the common touch, this notion of not losing sight of yourself, and we're going to be talking later on about how these ideals not only relate to Kipling as an individual, but also to the Victorian era in which he lived. But Maiya, tell us a little bit about this voice further and the directness 

Maiya: Well, Joe, I think it's really interesting that in the last few podcast episodes we've done, we've talked about poems that really, when you look at their sense of address, it is a lot more general. Anyone can pick them up, anyone can put themselves within the world of this poem. You know, you could take Maya Angelou's Still I Rise. You could take Danez Smith's, Dear White America. We have a huge abundance of poems that we've looked at that are actually very easy to step into the world of. For this poem, I think it's very different if occupies a space in which the sense of address is so direct.

It's a conversation between a father and a son or at least a father almost, writing down all of these recommendations for the son that he has. Now the sense of directness that I certainly find [00:03:00] in this poem makes it a lot harder for any reader to feel directly implicated in the poem.

Obviously it seems a little bit more detached. Now I think it's particularly poignant that for a poem that is as direct as this one is, that it offers that sense of distance. I don't know what you think about that, Joe.

Joe: Yeah it's interesting. I think the abstractness of some of those ideals we've spoken about perhaps make it easier at times to, But perhaps, I mean, the elephant in the room here is it's probably easier for me to feel that way because I mean, I am somebody's son. I'm not yet somebody's father. But the, I think there is no denying this poem speaks to a perceived sense of the masculine.

Now, whether or not that kind of masculinity ever existed and whether it exists now or in Kipling’s time I think is a question perhaps we'll come to later on. But I think that it is perhaps easier for male readers to situate themselves in this poem. 

Maiya: And one thing I'd really like to touch on actually is [00:04:00] something that's demonstrated very easily in the rhyme scheme of this poem. Obviously, the majority of the stanzas, you're looking at an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. However, that first stanza is the only one that starts with an AAAA. Not only that, but three of those are the word you. Immediately, as a male reader, you are absolutely centralized in this poem.

Joe: No, I agree, and obviously the use of the monorhyme insofar as using the same word functions as a monorhyme gives the poem a sense of certainty from the off. There is a sense that this is the way to be a man, not a way. And I think , as a man, and as a son, I can't help but find this poem somewhat intimidating as a sort of, a checklist of things to complete if you are to be the ideal archetypal masculine figure. So, I mean It's an impossible set of expectations to live up to, in fact, French philosopher Olivier Ray, as recently as 2006, has called the poem an expression of paternal tyranny.

And there is that sense that Kipling seems so obsessed with the [00:05:00] idea of his son fulfilling these archetypes, that actually he sets him up to fail. Because who could possibly? achieve all of these things. Just to give listeners who aren't familiar with the poem some examples I'll read from the third stanza.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss. I mean, Effectively, what Kipling is calling for is the idea that you should be able to put everything you've made, everything you've built, on the line, effectively, in a game of chance, and then not complain if you lose at all.

It's a fairly narrow and I think fairly oppressive version of masculinity. There's no sense that the son is able to share his doubts or his worries.

Maiya: I mean, it's a really fascinating position that he puts the son in, , especially kind of that expectation of he wants the son to walk with kings, but also not lose the common touch, not lose the connection to homeland or tradition or [00:06:00] people, but also doesn't want him to He wants him to walk an impossible line between, excess and kind of abject poverty, in a way.

Joe: I think this is a fascinating point and I think As we've mentioned, the time in which this poem is written compared to published, you know, 15 years might seem small but there's a really significant thing that happened in those 15 years, which is, of course, the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.

The poem is written six years prior to that, and in many ways, I think that. narrow sense of what is expected of a man is a reflection of that kind of Victorian era stoicism, that notion that there is a proper way to act. And you're right, it's a rejection of excess, it's a rejection of want.

Maiya: One of the things that I always find quite interesting reading this poem is, obviously, as readers now, we can look back and see Rudyard Kipling's kind of whole life. And towards the end, he became increasingly isolated from friends, family, from even the poetic scene, really. And the last [00:07:00] stanza of this always strikes a chord in me. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you but none too much, if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance, run. Yours is the earth and everything that's in it. I really feel this sense of heaviness and dislocation and distance that he's almost trying to bestow upon his son as well.

Excess plays in, yes, in financial terms, in The sense of chance that you've just spoken about, but it also plays in very heavily with a personal and an emotional chord.

Joe: No, I definitely agree. And if these are the expectations he had for his son in order to achieve masculinity, it's fair to assume that he would have expected these things himself as well. The thing I find really interesting about those last lines is, you'll be a man, my son.

And what we have there is the idea of the graduation almost from boy to man, but the presentation of those two things is binary. The idea that once you become a man you cease to change, you cease to evolve, you cease to [00:08:00] adapt. And I think that's a fascinating point you made about This increasing isolation towards the end of his life, it's almost as if Kipling himself was looking to embody these ideals, that once he had in his mind perhaps done so or failed to do so, there is no further sense of progression.

There is nowhere to go beyond being a man. I mean, if we think about our modern conception of what being a man means, we tend to think of it as just being adult, right? An adult male. Now, nobody in the modern era would assume that progression stops at the age of 18 or 21. I mean, I find that sense of manhood versus boyhood as binary to be quite a strange way of conceiving of the life of a male person.

Maiya: I know one of the things you wanted to touch on a little more, Joe, was that relationship that Kipling had with his own father and how that really reflected on his son and the relationship that they eventually had. , so would you like to tell us a little bit more about that?

Joe: There's a real tragic arc to Kipling's relationship with fatherhood, both when he was a son himself and of course in this poem where he [00:09:00] occupies the role of the father. So, as you said earlier, Maiya, Kipling was born in India, under British rule at the time, but he was sent as a young child to be educated in the UK.

These were very unhappy years for Kipling. He missed his parents and he felt very cut off from society. his family and from the kind of idyllic childhood that he perceived himself to have had in India. And obviously there was no sort of dominant male figure in his life. There was no father figure to impart the kind of wisdom that I think he thinks he's imparting to his own son in this poem. Now, As we've mentioned, John, the son associated with this poem, was not actually born in 1895, he was born two years later.

So by the time the poem is published, John is 13 years old. By the time the First World War breaks out, John is, I believe, 16 years old. And Kipling, as I'm sure we're going to talk about in the second half of this podcast, has a very close relationship with the idea of Britain as empire. 

He was very keen for his son to fight in the war, despite the fact that his son was actually refused by, the navy and the army on account of his very poor eyesight. Kipling managed to use his influence to get his son a [00:10:00] commission. John Kipling was killed in the First World War in 1915 and his body was not recovered, I believe, or not identified for decades, long after Rudyard Kipling's death, and

I think, unsurprisingly, Rudyard Kipling felt an enormous amount of guilt for having sort of driven his son to this, and this was a very young man, a boy in many respects, and the thing I find really sort of haunting is Rudyard wrote this epitaph shortly after the death of his son it reads any question why we died Tell them because our fathers lied But the thing I find so haunting about that is it flips the narrative voice from this poem if Yet it begins with the same word that again that sense of hypothetical that sense of if things could have been different But of course by this point John had died It is too late to change the outcome and I think that by occupying John's voice And actually by associating John's death with his father, by almost blaming his father, which of course, in Kipling's case, is himself, I think there is a lot of internalised [00:11:00] guilt there.

And I think perhaps there is a sense of acknowledgement that in trying to have a better relationship with his son than Rudyard had with his own father, there is a sense that he's pushed him too far.

Maiya: For sure, I mean, I think there's a real sense, when you compare the two, of generational failure, really. Lies is the word that really stands out to me, given that in the first stanza of If, Rudyard is telling his son, don't deal in lies. It's almost a, do what I say, not what I do situation. And yet because John was lost so young, his son hasn't been given the opportunities to rectify the mistakes of the father. It really seems like a stopping point, or a horribly vicious cycle, really. 

Joe: I completely agree and I think it calls to mind that quote from Exodus, you know, the sins of the father are visited upon his children. There is that sense that Kipling was so keen to ensure that his son lived up to these expectations, that perhaps he failed to live up to them himself.

That word lie is really [00:12:00] important and I do think it has a direct correlation back to this poem because this poem does not just promise manhood, there is implicit within that a sense that and your problems will go away and if you achieve these things and achieve the kind of archetypal manhood that Kipling is advocating for. And, of course, the First World War is a harrowing reminder of the fact that you can do things right, you can be a good person, you can obey the law, and you can still be killed, and you can still have your body fail to be recovered, and you can still experience untold horrors.

It's a real sort of hammer blow to that idea of the Victorian gentleman as something sort of beyond reproach.

Maiya: Which is where that sense of the hypothetical in this poem really plays in, I think. You know, you have this very concrete sense of what the Victorian gentleman is, the things he does, the way he carries himself. How he acts, the way he speaks, his beliefs. It's a very, , traditional and sensible and reserved feeling. [00:13:00] Kipling's poem is all about the hypothetical.

It's the title itself, If. , as you said in the intro, it really deals with the abstract and the promises and the things that you can't really tangibly feel. I think that repetition obviously serves in a way, In a lot of ways as an anaphoric repetition, in that it's a real monotonous and continuous drilling in of these abstract ideals that I certainly feel as if Kipling is trying to create a bit of a new world here.

Joe: I think that's a really interesting point and I think you're right that nature of the anaphoric repetition creates this sense of manhood as something deferred. Ultimately actually perhaps the real message of this poem is you will never get to these things and you're not meant to. Perhaps it's actually a challenge laying down the gauntlet to young men to say.

Once you've achieved this, you're closer, but you're not there yet. You must go further.

Maiya: Which is a fascinating point when you look at the second stanza and how it closes with Watch the things you [00:14:00] gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. Kipling stood there telling his son that all of the tools that he's been given are all the tools that he can then offer on, but he's almost asking him to create something entirely new with them, and it makes it that much more tragic that that opportunity just never arose, because of the things that Kipling put his son through.

Joe: Definitely, and I think that evocation of a new world is fascinating, especially given that the poem is turn of the century, written at a time when Britain was the world's major power, and Kipling was immensely proud of that fact.

There is a sense here that this is a call to build a new future, and I think Again, the kind of tragic irony of that is the generation of young men in Kipling's eyes that were meant to build that new future never got the chance because, of course, a generation of young men were killed, wounded or traumatized by the events of the First World War.

Now, Maiya. For obvious reasons, because this is the direction the poem has taken us in, we've been [00:15:00] talking a lot about men so far in this episode. Fathers, sons, young men, old men. There is a startling absence of women in this poem, to the point where it feels deliberate and very carefully thought out.

What do you make of that? And how, as a female reader, do you relate to the poem?

Maiya: I mean, I sort of hinted at it earlier, I think reading this as a woman and adding to that a young modern woman, it's incredibly difficult to enter this poem. I certainly found as I was rereading the poem, and it's a poem that I've come across multiple times in my life, but it's one that I've never really sat down to study until we decided to talk about it on the podcast.

So upon a rereading, I didn't realise how difficult I found it to enter in, and I think that's a huge part of the reason I talk more about the abstraction and the distance that I find in the poem, because, you say, there are no women in this poem. It's not mentioned at all, and I know when we were talking before the pod, one of the things you pointed out was that there was a queen at the time, and yet the reference of royalty that Kipling [00:16:00] uses is a king. He specifically makes the gender change. A lot of the time I would have credited this as being, you know, a poem of its time, or that generally when you're looking at literature from the period, women aren't really centralized, even if they are mentioned.

However, he has made a very conscious choice to completely negate and neglect any sort of female story in this poem. So I do have to ask myself, one, is it purposeful, and two, what purpose does it serve? The one hand, this is a narrative between fathers and sons.

So I do understand in a certain aspect, or in a certain light, the presence of women doesn't necessarily demand to be felt. However, when the poem is talking about much broader themes, much more general tropes that would signify what it is to be a man I do find it particularly interesting that Victorian ideals such as being a husband, being a father himself doesn't crop up, as at the time this was obviously a huge part of what it meant to be a [00:17:00] Victorian gentleman. It was about legacy, it was about family. I think for me again, it relates back to this whole cyclical, horribly tragic narrative in which In a lot of ways, Kipling's not really expecting his son to have a legacy any further than the legacy that he would build for him.

Joe: The thing that strikes me about the absence of the female figures is the fact that the world in which he expects his son to go out and live in appears devoid of women, irrespective of the poem itself.

As you said, the poem was written under the reign of Queen Victoria, Britain's most famous ever queen, and yet he changes,, the mention of the royal to kings. I can't help but call to mind. other sort of Victorian novels in which women appear to be kind of withdrawn from the conversation.

I mean, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for example, 1886, just nine years before this poem was written, is a novel in which women sort of barely feature at all. And once again, we have this sense of a world in which men have to tussle with what it means to be a man, [00:18:00] but have to do so without the presence of women, which is a strange thing, I think, to conceive of.

Just one thing, I think, that's an interesting There was a poem written in 1931 by Elizabeth Lincoln Otis, which was titled If For Girls. And it's effectively writing back against Kipling's poem,

I think it's hard to overstate the way in which In countries like Britain and America, for example, the role and the rights and the lifestyle of women changed in the 46 years between Kipling's poem and her poem. And I think viewing the 1931 poem in the context of Kipling's poem is a real reminder of the fact that Kipling was writing at a point of flux.

Maiya: In a lot of ways, I think the absence of women in this poem can be separated and talked about as a whole separate episode, I'm sure. But, I think, on a broader level, what it really speaks to is agency. Obviously, there is a complete lack of women in this poem.

They aren't present to even have an opportunity to grasp agency, right? But also, look at who is in this [00:19:00] poem. You have kings, you have the common people, you have the father and the son. There is, I'd argue, some kind of religious motifs that thread through this poem anyway.

But what I'd really like to focus on is the agency piece. Because, throughout this whole poem, I truly don't find that the speaker, the son The kings, the common people, I don't think there's a real sense of agency that I can pick up from any of them. Obviously, the son is being told what he must be, the father is so concretely set in his ideals that he's just enduring a life that has been set for him previously. I think what I find more than anything is that the sense of duty in this poem absolutely overrides any sense of personal agency.

Joe: Definitely, and I'm really glad you mentioned the religious allusions running through this poem. There's one in particular I'd just like to pick up on at the end and I think it speaks to, again the contradictions at the heart of this poem. You cannot be all of the things that Kipling wants his son to be in this poem, but right at the end of the poem, we get that line, [00:20:00] Yours is the earth. And to my mind, that reminds me of a line from the book of Matthew, a very famous line from the Bible, which is blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. And again, we have that sense of meekness. as being something precious and something that should be encouraged and something that God will reward and yet so much of this poem is calling for boldness and it's like you mentioned earlier on you have to be meek but not too meek you have to be bold but not too bold I mean it's a complete Goldilocks of a poem and I think it establishes a set of expectations that are impossible to achieve now perhaps that's the point

Maiya: Which is truly one of the most interesting things about this poem is that it is full of contradictions and yet throughout pop culture really, and society, there are people who pick and choose parts of this poem and pull different sections that relate to inspiration or destiny. I mean, the section that I read at the start is on Wimbledon Centre Court. It really speaks to a sense of triumph and defeat and the perpetual sense of challenge that you get. 

Joe: That's definitely the way that I find I relate to the poem. I mean, I [00:21:00] think of it as a series of individual moments. The more I read it as a cohesive whole, I think the more I struggle with it when I read it as a series of individual moments, whether it's a line or two or four lines, there are moments that are really powerful and I can completely understand why so many generations of people have fallen in love with this poem. It's one of the UK's best loved poems.

We're going to talk about that It's complicated legacy after the break, but I think the more I think of it as a coherent set of expectations that must be viewed in tandem with one another, the more I struggle to reconcile myself with it 

but like I said, lots of talk about after the break,

Maiya: So as we all know, it's approaching the end of summer, which unfortunately means back to school season for so many people. Now a Poetry+ membership is one of the best ways to get on top of your poetry learning.

Not only do we have an extensive learning library. A huge amount of printable poem PDFs, but you can go onto the website [00:22:00] Poemanalysis.com and research any poem or any poet to your heart's desire. So sign up now for a Poetry+ membership at Poemanalysis.com.

Joe: So in the second half of today's episode we're going to be talking a little bit about the poem's reputation post Kipling's life and Kipling's reputation more broadly because it's a very complicated story for very good reasons and I think the place that we have to start is with some sort of basic information about Kipling and his beliefs.

So Kipling, as we've said, came of age in the height of the British Empire and he had a very imperialist attitude to the world. He believed in the supremacy of what he perceived to be civilised European nations And he believed in their innate right to lord and rule over people from around the world. So he was a supporter of colonialism and he wrote several poems that are immensely contentious today, just one example would be The White Man's Burden in 1891, so just four years prior to the writing of If, in which he [00:23:00] promoted the US and their right to establish a colony in the Philippines.

For listeners who aren't aware, he also wrote the beloved children's book, The Jungle Book. , but even that has been noted to have sort of imperialist undertones. And I think Kipling is a really interesting way of entering the conversation about art and the artist, about moral relativism, about what relationship a poet has to their work once it's published in the world, and we're going to talk about that a lot, but first of all, Maiya, I mean, those are the facts of Kipling.

Those are some of the reasons that he's a very controversial figure, but, you know, what's your take on it? I know you have some more personal reflections you'd like to share.

Maiya: I think one of the things I'd really like to touch on is, your personal relationship to a poem, or a piece of literature, or a specific poet, writer, author. I have to say, hands up, I come at this poem as a young woman, someone who is biracial, someone who can absolutely see the direct impact of the poem. Those imperialist, colonialist tendencies that through [00:24:00] Kipling's work, whether subtle, whether overt, crop up, and I find it very difficult to read his work without the context of that. As you say, this is a really fascinating topic to really delve into when you explore separating the artist from the art. And it's a topic that crops up all the time in modern conversation. One of the things that I find particularly interesting with Kipling is that, And, you know, feel free to disagree with me on this, is I find it a lot easier with Kipling's novels or literary work that is written in prose, really, it's a lot easier to divorce the writer from the written word. One of the things that I find with fiction specifically is that your assumption as a reader is that you are introduced to a character who is not the author. Unless it's an autobiography, you're really exploring a completely different world, often fantasy, often removed from what is actually going on in the world. With a poem, it's a lot harder to do that, and [00:25:00] actually in a lot of the poems that we've talked about in this podcast and previous episodes, Maya Angelou is a great example, is that the poem is really assumed to be spoken by the poet. In that sense, it makes it so much harder to divorce the context and the writer and their personal views. from the impact that the poem has on you as a person. This poem obviously, if, doesn't make a massive statement about the importance of imperialism, but what it does do is talk about the masculine tendencies that interrelate , with white colonialism or white imperialism. So I find it really tough, I find it really hard to read this poem. And not see that there are repercussions that, that stretch greater than this poem. And I think that's why I find it so much more difficult to really find any foothold in this poem, really. I can't really get my teeth into it because I can see a world that's created around the poet, around his [00:26:00] work. And generally, I think with so many poets, it's very easy to say that their writing is just a product of the time and that is sometimes a bit of a lazy excuse to not explore what's going on around the poem. Do I think, though, that means you shouldn't read the poem, or you shouldn't read the poet's work and inform yourself?

No, I think it makes it that much richer to actually explore the things that they did rightly or wrongly, because it offers you a sense of perspective. I don't know what you think about that, Joe.

Joe: Well, I was just reflecting as you were talking about the way in which the poem doesn't engage directly with colonial thought and it was making me think about that point I made just before the break about how yours is the earth and I sort of took a fairly innocent, perhaps naive interpretation of that and linked it to that Bible passage about sort of the meek humankind all over the world irrespective of their nation or [00:27:00] their race will inherit the earth.

But of course, The statement, yours is the earth, implies that the speaker has the right to give it. And again, that sense of entitlement, that sense of the right to rule, I think, does run through Kipling's work and is something that, as modern readers, we find very problematic.

Maiya: I'd really like to pick up actually on, on what you just said about, the poet or the speaker having the right to gift the earth. On the flip side, the son is also being given the right to take it. And that language of give and take and ownership is something that plays into this. Because there are kind of financial overtones.

And I think what I find really tough with this poem is that as I said right at the start the male is centralized. But not just that, it is the white man that is being offered and taking, without permission, the earth that has been bestowed upon him. Obviously, in a much broader sense, a lot of post colonial thought and post colonial criticism [00:28:00] discusses this sense of right. And this is a poem that I think is a really perfect example of how colonial undertones or belief in imperialism can thread its way into a general outlook. That's why it's dangerous.

Joe: Yeah, I'd just like to zoom out briefly and think about the poem and perhaps think about Kipling as sort of an example of a wider conversation. This conversation, as we mentioned earlier about art and the artist, and, you used that phrase earlier on, a product of its time, which is a phrase that is, often used to, I suppose, account for or at least explain moral qualms that modern readers or viewers might have with older texts, films, poems, whatever it is.

I think this brings into question the issue of moral relativism, which in this context, basically means what we perceive to be moral or immoral is not something that is fixed, is not something that is innate in the world, but changes as society changes. 

So people often talk about the issue of [00:29:00] slavery. Was everybody who was alive in pre Victorian England evil because they weren't fighting against the horrors of slavery? I mean, that's a question that is not for me or for Maiya to answer, but I think sometimes that can be used to talk about somebody like Kipling, to say, well, it was a different time.

There were different sets of expectations. And that has to be taken into account. But it's also worth pushing back on that where there is evidence to do so. So one prominent example that relates to Kipling. Is to do with the Amritsar massacre, which was a terrible event that occurred in India under British rule in which 379 people were killed in the city of Amritsar on the orders of Colonel Reginald Dyer.

Now, there is a line that is allegedly from Kipling, which was that Dyer was the man who quote saved India. There is suggestion that he perhaps donated money to a fund to support Reginald Dyer.

Again, people might push back and say that this is once again, the issue of moral relativism, but it is worth remembering that Dyer's actions were condemned in India and [00:30:00] in Britain at the time. Winston Churchill condemned Dyer's actions.

Any student of history will know, Winston Churchill is not innocent with regard to these kind of accusations either. So, it's important, I think, to acknowledge the fact that Kipling was living in a different time. It's also important not to use that as a blank brush to wipe the slate clean. 

Maiya: That's really important to keep in mind, and especially given, you know, we're approaching this poem, we're analysing this poem in a public space, does that mean we agree with the things that it's saying? Does it mean that we support this poet? Does it mean that we are ignorant of what's going on around it?

No, but it's an important part of the conversation. To ensure that we're constantly offering new revisions, new sides, and allowing people to make up their own minds, their own moral standpoint, on whether they feel they can engage with this as a piece of art, and simply enjoy it for the fact it's a well written poem, and I don't think you or I would [00:31:00] dispute that. Or, if they feel that the context weighs far too heavily on it. For me, I fall on the latter side of that, unfortunately. And I must admit that Kipling isn't someone that I routinely engage with. But, I grew up with the Just So stories.

It's a fundamental part of, at least my upbringing, is reading Rudyard Kipling. But Does that mean that I should guilt myself for when I was a child for reading something that I later learned was morally disagreeable with me? No. You have to engage with these works in the best way that you see fit and ultimately, I think what I'd say for any reader who's approaching this is just to approach it with knowledge and read around and be certain that the way that you're approaching it is the way that you're happy with.

Joe: 100%, and I think this is a conversation that is very pertinent to sort of the 21st century and our relationship to celebrity, our relationship to the past. I think that it's a real can of worms. I mean, there was a lot of controversy last [00:32:00] year with regard to revisions made to Roald Dahl's children's books.

I mean, anybody who's read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens will find that there's a lot of anti Semitic remarks in the book. And I would never, ever begrudge any individual reader from choosing not to engage with a poem, a film, or a book that is absolutely their prerogative and their reasons are their own.

They don't have to justify them to anybody. I think the question becomes more complicated when we talk about what is the relationship between individually appreciating art and revering the artist who made it. It calls to mind an incident that took place in 2018 at Manchester University where their student union put up a mural of Rudyard Kipling's poem, If, only for a group of students to deface it and replace it with Maya Angelou's Still I Rise.

Now, many of our listeners will know that we actually analysed that poem a few weeks ago, and I encourage those who haven't already listened to go back and check that episode out. And I think that's an example where it could be argued that the line has been crossed from appreciating an individual poem, or certainly regarding a poem as worthy of [00:33:00] study, perhaps that has slipped into venerating the poet and the things he did.

And also I find it bizarre because, if nothing else, we've spoken about the absence of women in this poem. Well, the average university in the UK nowadays is made up of 57 percent female students. So it strikes me as an odd decision, if nothing else, because it's a poem that perhaps doesn't speak to or doesn't have anything to say to more than half of its students.

But, I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

Maiya: You have to wonder if Manchester University had pulled one quote from this poem, for example, the reception may have been different. Obviously, it's a slightly odd choice to choose a poem about fathers and sons in its entirety to inspire your university population, but nobody's ever defaced the Centre Court Wimbledon slogan. So really I think that's a perfect example of valuing the poem for what it is versus valuing the poet for the things they believe. As you said throughout this podcast, you can pull any section from this poem and it can translate really fantastically, it can be inspiring, it can be triumphant, it [00:34:00] can feel important.

But as a whole, when you read it, or if you imbue it with the context, you're Really exploring something that is much more than a poem, because it's so much harder to divorce the poet from the work they write, especially if it's in the first person.

Joe: Look, I think these kind of conversations are important to have. I mean, I'm not an advocate for removing the work of any particular author from the canon. , I think that kind of level of censorship can be dangerous, albeit, as I've said, I have no issue whatsoever with individual readers. Choosing not to engage with a certain text.

I think the conversation we're having today is against the backdrop of the removal of statues that occurred a few years ago in the UK, that were venerating people that don't align with our modern sense of morality. I mean, we've changed the names of schools. We've removed statues. We've revised the way that certain people are perceived in history.

And those conversations are really important and they need to happen. like I said, that's an ongoing conversation and an [00:35:00] incredibly complex one. I think the thing that I find interesting about this poem, is that it remains very enduringly popular, especially in the UK.

I mean, it was voted the UK's favourite poem in 1996. And I would be curious to see that list in 10 years, in 15 years, and what Kipling's legacy continues to be, because he's a huge figure. We can't ignore that, and we shouldn't ignore it. He is a really significant writer around the world. One of the most pivotal moments of British history, you know, the beginnings of the decline of the British Empire and his voice is a really important one, albeit one that we must treat with caution and we must be very careful of venerating in a modern context.

Maiya: And if anything, it really just seeks to frame that period of time. And as I said earlier in the podcast, even by the end of Kipling's life, he was an isolated figure. There were people at that time who were presently disagreeing with him, obviously, ideas and ideals develop very rapidly in modern society. And speaking from the moment [00:36:00] at which Kipling was born into the world to the present day, we have seen a rapid change in modern progress and the way that society is framed around itself. So I think one of the most important things really to keep in mind when, reading Kipling or reading any other poet who really , occupies that sort of confrontational or complex space in literature. All of the things that feed into a poem, the poet's outlook on life, the context in which it was written, the time, the people that it was influenced by? They all create a very dense picture, and it can be very tough to sift through those, to find the heart of a poem, or to really, in essence, separate it from all of those things. But it's up to every single reader who is interested. Approaching that catalog of literature or that specific poem to make their own decision about how they frame that poem, right? That's what studying literature Uh, higher [00:37:00] education levels is all about, it's interpretation, but it's particularly poignant, to me at least, that Kipling hasn't been completely reviled and cut from the canon, he has this really immense presence, especially in British society, as you've said, but what it does is it really offers quite a rich portrait of where we are as a modern society now by, by contrasting and comparing with Work that we may or may not see as either too traditional or not in line with our modern ideals or or at the risk of your own personal morality. So

it's It's a really interesting conversation, I think, even when you and I talk about it, Joe,

even whilst you're trying to approach a poem with as little scrutiny as possible to offer yourself up to the broadest interpretations, it's not easy to just shed the skin of how you feel 

about it. 

Joe: think that's completely correct and it is a nuanced conversation around the way that tastes change with time. But the [00:38:00] thing I think I'd like to ask you, Maiya, to perhaps bring the podcast to a close is do you think a writer of Kipling's time actually struggles more With that kind of retroactive criticism than somebody a hundred years earlier Are we less forgiving because he feels just close enough to the modern world that we can almost apply Modern morality without it seeming anachronistic I mean, I wonder if Kipling had been a century older than he was, would we be more willing to overlook some of these things? Is it that sense of proximity to the modern world that means we're less forgiving of the things that he did that don't align with modern values?

Maiya: I mean, it's a really fascinating question. It's not really something that I'd considered, but I think in many ways, education and progression kind of go hand in hand. I think we are living in a time at which you have a vast abundance of people who are highly educated in worldly matters, whether they're, they go into formal education or not.

So I think my [00:39:00] answer truly is yes, I think Kipling's proximity is actually in many ways hindered by the fact that he was so, so present, at least in the childhoods of our generation and the generations before and in that way, because you're introduced to Kipling in a very innocent light. Obviously, the Jungle Book, Just So Stories, these poems that are fundamentally kind of childlike at the root of it. It's a very easy way to almost negate some of the more historic or opinionated pieces that he wrote. And in that sense, because he feels so near and dear to so many people, I think the contrast is then that people are really quite disappointed when they find out more about him. And I think that real dislocation between value and disappointment offers a little bit more anger as well, because you've been taught to treasure someone who actually may not align with your [00:40:00] moral standing.

So had he have been born, as you said, maybe a hundred years earlier, maybe 200 years earlier, and not introduced to us in the way that he has been, maybe if he was just taught at a GCSE level, or if he was a poem that you came across once in a lifetime, the attitude would be very different because one of the criticisms I sort of leveled earlier in the podcast is that, Oh, he was of his time is such a common excuse to allow readers and critics to really not delve too deeply into the fundamentals of what they want to talk about with that specific complicated writer or poet. I definitely find that. With Kipling, he occupies two very different perspectives, at least in, in modern society, in that he's either revered and loved, or he's reviled and sort of criticized far more frequently and far more often than, as you say, someone like Charles Dickens, who you are introduced to at a much later stage because the work is that much more [00:41:00] complex.

Unfortunately, Joe, that's all we have time for today. I certainly hope we managed to offer a balanced view of Kipling's life and work. Next time, we are talking about the poem The Second Coming by the poet W. B. Yeats. But for now, it's goodbye from me.

Joe: And goodbye from me and the whole team at Poemanalysis.com and Poetry+.