Rudyard Kipling

3 Pages 765 Words

"If" ,written as a pendant to the story "Brothers Square-Toes," in Rewards and Fairies, deals with the misunderstandings and public pressures that confront statesmen, the ability to master of one’s dreams and thoughts and the capacity to take triumphs and loses in the stride without complaining (Henn, T.R.). This poem offers certain moral propositions - courage, reticent stoicism and supreme value of work (Henn, T.R.). Describing a person’s ability to resist one’s emotions even when a "loving [friend]" perpetrates an atrocity, as a virtue gives an ironical meaning to "loving friends" and suggests a quality of friendship less than the generally desired level, proves as the one flaw that plagues this poem (Henn, T.R.). This flaw offsets itself by the poem’s ability to relate to the moral values of plain-folks.
By studying the variety of his poetry which included hymns and ballads we can see the diversity of his works and his greatness lies in the fact that he received recognition for not just one but various types of poetry. Variety in poetry also reflects the innate capabilities of a poet and the development in an authors poetic abilities over time. Right through his life Kipling experimented with various forms of poetry. Starting of with brief witty verses he went on to create some of the most memorable poems in English Literature. This reflects the improvement in poetic skills that he underwent throughout his career. Among these poetic skills, brilliant and rhetorical verse and power, originality and sincerity form the corner stone of his works. His capability to combine strength and exactness without sacrificing one for the other amazes critics even today. Kipling displays his real strength in fluency of rhyme, control of rhythm, and an intense awareness of the dramatic possibilities of different patterns (Henn, T.R.). His innate ability to reach the literary class who reads for style, the average reader who reads for amuseme...