Page 99 - DENG104_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_I

Elective English–I Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Notes
Unit 9: “If” by Rudyard Kipling

CONTENTS
Objectives

Introduction
9.1 Introduction to Author

9.2 “If”
9.3 Analysis
9.4 Poetic Devices in the Poem
9.5 Theme

9.6 Summary
9.7 Keywords
9.8 Review Questions

9.9 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Know about Rudyard Kipling;
• Understand the poem “If”;
• Discuss the devices and theme of the poem;
• Make analysis of the poem.

Introduction

Rudyard Kipling’s “If” is perhaps his most famous poem. Kipling composed the poem in 1909
while living in Great Britain. It was first published in 1910 in Kipling’s collection of children’s
stories, Rewards and Fairies, as a companion piece to the story “Brother Square Toes,” which
is an account of George Washington and his presidency during the French Revolution. The
placement of the didactic poem after “Brother Square Toes” in the collection serves to distill
a specific lesson from the story for its young readers.
“If” attracted immediate nationwide attention in Britain, and it was quickly adopted as a
popular anthem. In the Kipling Journal, CE Carrington relates Kipling’s own words of subtle
displeasure regarding the unexpected rampant popularity of the poem:
Among the verses in Rewards ... was one set called “If,” which escaped from the book, and for
a while ran about the world ... Once started, the mechanisation of the age made them snowball
themselves in a way that startled me ... Twenty-seven of the Nations of the Earth translated
them into their seven-and-twenty tongues, and printed them on every sort of fabric.
“If” is a didactic poem, a work meant to give instruction. In this case, “If” serves as an
instruction in several specific traits of a good leader. Kipling offers this instruction not through
listing specific characteristics, but by providing concrete illustrations of the complex actions
a man should or should not take which would reflect these characteristics.

94 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY