Rudyard Kipling Research Paper

Rudyard Kipling is considered one of the greatest Victorian poets ever. His incredible construction of poems and children's stories which he wrote give us a glimpse of this incredible man who has many famous poems and stories to his name. Despite his poetry not being acknowledged at a young age, once Kipling moved to England he found himself much more support and respect, which coincided with a period in which he wrote some of his greatest poems. After relocating to East Essex about a decade later, he began to change the style of his stories to cause some imagination in the children who would be reading or listening to them. Also, he was not a poet who would write outside of his beliefs and change things to get more people to read his poems. Rather, Kipling demonstrated honesty and compassion in his poems, which actually caused him to be disliked by many for what they considered to be an outlandish political view. However, this trait is viewed by many, including me, as an important trait for a poet to demonstrate, because poetry was not created for people to have a job and make money; in fact,

it is quite the opposite. Poetry should be used to describe emotions and the feelings of the poet, and the reader should be left to decide if he or she likes it, and not the other way around.

Kipling wrote with passion, style and craftsmanship.

He wrote about things which he dealt with in everyday life, things which he was interested in, and things which he felt like bringing up. The poems which I chose- the 'Absent Minded Beggar', the 'Rabbi's Song', 'Zion', and the 'School Song'- all demonstrate these aspects mentioned above. In the Absent Minded Beggar, Kipling brings up something that I'm sure he had experience with- beggars who just ask for money. and can't do much else, while everything that he isn't doing is taken care of for him, yet, all he does is stick out his hat and say pay. Kipling was not afraid to go and bring up something which although some of the population loathed, many had been in the past. Also, the way Kipling presents the poems is genius, with 4 stanzas, each one causing the reader's imagination to turn on and really think about the

subject.

In the 'Rabbi's Song' and 'Zion', Kipling writes about topics which are pertinent to Judaism, which explains why I chose them. It is very likely that at the time that Kipling wrote these poems he was engrossed in the study of religion, or he was trying to improve his actions to go along with the teachings of the Rabbis. This definitely fits it with one of the themes Kipling wrote about- things which he was interested in- and whether the public was interested in it or not, he still wrote about it. This may see egotistical, but one should realize that Kipling saw poetry differently from the average man. Again, poetry is meant to invoke the imagination of the reader, who subsequently resides if they like it or not, and not the poet writing about something the reader likes to become more popular.