Joseph Rudyard Kipling and his Works

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Rudyard Kipling

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” –Rudyard Kipling. Rudyard Kipling was born on December 30, 1865 at Bombay, India. Kipling spent the first six years of his idyllic life in India until his family moved back to England in 1871. After six months of living in England his parents abandoned him and his three year old sister, leaving them with the Holloway family, which in turn mistreated him physically and psychologically, this left him with a sense of betrayal and scars mentally, but it was then Kipling started to grow a love for literature. Between 1878 and 1882 he attended the United Services College at Westward Ho in north Devon. The College was a new and very rough boarding school where, nearsighted and physically frail, he was once again teased and bullied, but where, nevertheless, he developed fierce loyalties. In 1882 Kipling returned to India, where he spent the next seven years working in various capacities as a journalist and editor. Kipling also started writing about India itself and the Anglo-Indian society, This is where Kipling's admiration began to one day be a part of the British military. By 1890 Kipling returned to England and was a well know poet as well as an author. Kipling was the highest paid poet of his time by the age of 32. Rudyard Kipling’s incredible support for the British war effort caused his poems, such as Boots, The Last of the Light Brigade, and Tommy, to convey the theme that soldiers are rarely seen as heroes until freedom is at stake.

“I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,/The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here"(1-2). “Tommy” is one of Kipling's most popular poems; it is included in barrack room ballads and...

... middle of paper ...

...pect should be shown to the soldiers, whether it’s a time of war or if people are enjoying freedom.

Works Cited

Allen, Charles. Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling. New York: Pegasus Books, 2009. Print.

Gilmour, David. The Long Recessional: the Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Print.

“Rudyard Kipling.” 2014. The Biography Channel website. March 10, 11:14

"Rudyard Kipling." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

"Rudyard Kipling: Poems Summary and Analysis." Rudyard Kipling: Poems Study Guide :

Summary and Analysis of "Tommy". N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.

"Snell, Katherine. "Poetry or Verse." Kipling's Poetry. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.

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