Page 157 - DENG203_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_IV

Elective English—IV

Notes much care for his new house, whose design, he claimed, left its occupants feeling dispirited
and gloomy, he managed to remain productive and socially active.

In early 1898 the Kiplings travelled to South Africa for their winter holiday, thus beginning
an annual tradition which (excepting the following year) was to last until 1908.
In the non-fiction realm he also became involved in the debate over the British response
to the rise in German naval power known as the Tirpitz Plan to build a fleet to challenge
the Royal Navy, publishing a series of articles in 1898 which were collected as A Fleet in
Being.
Such was Kipling’s popularity that he was asked by his friend Max Aitken to intervene in
the 1911 Canadian election on behalf of the Conservatives. On 7 September 1911,
the Montreal Daily Star newspaper published a front-page appeal to all Canadians against
the reciprocity agreement with the United States by Kipling who wrote: “It is her own
soul that Canada risks today.
According to the English magazine Masonic Illustrated, Kipling became a Freemason in
about 1885, prior to the usual minimum age of 21.
At the beginning of World War I, like many other writers, Kipling wrote pamphlets
which enthusiastically supported the UK’s war aims of restoring Belgium after that kingdom
had been occupied by Germany together with more generalised statements that Britain
was standing up for the cause of good.

Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with much less success
than before. On the night of 12 January 1936, Kipling suffered a haemorrhage in his small
intestine. He underwent surgery, but died less than a week later on 18 January 1936 at the
age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer.

After the death of Kipling’s wife in 1939, his house, “Bateman’s” in Burwash, East Sussex,
South East England, where he had lived from 1902 until 1936, was bequeathed to the
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty and is now a public museum
dedicated to the author.
In modern-day India, whence he drew much of his material, Kipling’s reputation remains
controversial, especially amongst modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics.
Other contemporary Indian intellectuals such as Ashis Nandy have taken a more nuanced
view of his work. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, always
described Kipling’s novel Kim as his favourite book.

Before a midnight breaks in storm written by Stephen Leacock was first published as the
Dedication to The Five Nation (1903).
The poem sounds an apocalyptic note, warning against the danger that comes when the
signs of impending disaster are ignored. Kipling was frustrated by the failure of those in
power to register the threat from Germany, who’s military and imperial ambitions were
evident to him.

8.4 Keywords

Catastrophe: It can be defined as an event causing great and usually sudden damage or suffering.
Enigmatic: It is something which is difficult to interpret or understand.

Glimpse: It can be defined as a momentary or partial view or a brief insight or indication of
something.

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