😉 Greetings to regular and new readers! In the article “Rudyard Kipling: biography, creativity, facts, video” – about the life of an English writer, poet, novelist and Nobel Prize winner in literature. Lived: 186-1936.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling
The future famous writer, who was rightfully ranked among the “great storytellers”, was born in a mysterious and mysterious country – India, in Bombay. His father served as a teacher at an art school. The boy grew up in the care of Indian servants and began to speak Hindi earlier than English.
Although most of his life was spent outside India, he always felt like an Anglo-Indian. And this was a very special category of people. While maintaining a lively connection with England, they still considered India their country.
They knew her well and loved in a special way both the country itself and the peoples inhabiting it, not forgetting, however, that they are the messengers of a higher civilization. Such a view of the population of the English colonies – understanding, attentive, even respectful, but still condescending – the writer will keep forever, and he will define a lot in his work.
When the boy grew up a little, he was sent to England. There he lived with strangers, as he later said – “in the house of despair.” In his family, he was a spoiled pet. Here they tried to educate him with severity and humiliating punishments.
Due to nervousness, Rudyard’s eyesight began to deteriorate rapidly. The emotional experience of bondage and humiliation has not been forgotten. He would then describe the “House of Despair” in the story “Ma-e, Black Sheep” (1888).
Kipling’s work
After receiving a good education, Joseph returned to India. Here, in one of the newspapers published in the city of Lahore, his articles and stories appear (“The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows”). These stories later compiled the collections “Simple stories from the hills” (1887), “Willie-Winky”, “Under the deodar”, “Three soldiers” (all three – 1888).
For British literature, these stories were a new, unusual genre. First of all, their brevity was unusual: the newspaper platforms did not allow to turn around. But the master of the word turned this external circumstance into an artistic device. In his prose, every word is in plain sight, almost like in poetry.
English literature (unlike American and French) is not used to this. “Kipling captured the cold, clear cruelty of the French story. These stories are like pricks: both quickly and very painfully, ”wrote GK Chesterton.
Kipling’s language was close to the everyday speech of the Anglo-Indians. In particular, it was replete with borrowings from Indian languages (due to which, many of them were subsequently established in literary English).
Finally, he built his plots on material that was also new for literature, although his first readers were perfectly familiar – on descriptions of the life of colonial officials. Until Kipling’s fame spread beyond India, it was perceived as realism, and sometimes shockingly rough and harsh.
Soon the English public also became interested in the writer. The everyday background of his stories immediately turned into exoticism. Events and characters were shrouded in a romantic haze.
Kipling’s poetry
In poetry, Rudyard Kipling made his debut even earlier. His collection School Lyrics came out in 1881, when Joseph was barely sixteen years old. His poetic style is very distinctive. This acclaimed classic stands out in classical English poetry.
Rudyard Kipling: biography and creativity → Awesome poem “If”
Neither the language, nor the rhythm, nor the heroes of his poems seem to pay any attention to tradition.
The language of classical English poetry (as well as Russian) retains many outdated words and phrases and thus is isolated from prosaic speech. Kipling writes not only in “prosaic” language, but often in a deliberately incorrect language.
His favorite technique is to tell the story from the perspective of a character: a soldier, a sailor. And they do not speak quite competently – misinterpreting new words, using vernacular and dialectical forms and professional expressions. The Russian reader can remember it as an analogy to the song of Vysotsky and Galich.
Kipling wanted the poems to sound like the characters’ authentic speech. And in what genre can a soldier or sailor naturally speak in poetry? Of course, in the song. Therefore, the rhythms of many poems seem to dictate the melody.
Kipling was indeed a preacher, but he preached not only imperialism. He tried to teach his contemporaries to live with dignity – even if you do not believe that every act, good or evil, will be rewarded in heaven.
Deed and Law
Kipling replaced God’s commandments with the idea of the Law. His heroes comprehend and defend the laws of their country, their regiment, their “pack”. Sometimes literally, as in the stories about Mowgli.
The law exists for those who have a common Cause. This is Kipling’s second most important asset. In one of his best poems – “Tomlinson” – he mockingly describes the afterlife fate of a man who had no Cause in his life.
He is not allowed into heaven, but the same thing is repeated at the gates of hell. As a result, out of pity, Satan sends him to earth.
A man without a Cause is not a man. And the Business of the Englishman Kipling considered the Empire. But those who consider him an ordinary chauvinist will be mistaken. First, the Empire for him meant serving the conquered peoples, that is, a duty, not a privilege.
And secondly, Kipling has no trace of disrespect for those peoples who resisted British rule. He understood that they have their own “flock”, and if they follow its Law, then they are good people, worthy of respect. Because two things in the world – Love and War – are ancient and higher than any Law.
Best Book on India
For a long time, the writer remained a master of the small form: readers appreciated his stories and poems. And only in 1900 was “Kim” published – a masterpiece of the writer and, by all accounts, the best book about India.
In this novel, adventure intrigue is surprisingly combined with philosophical depth, and vivid pictures of Indian life – with psychological clarity.
His heroes – a Buddhist monk and an orphan boy, the son of an English soldier – are both involved in India (Buddhism is a religion of Indian origin, and the boy grew up a homeless child in an Indian city and feels like a fish in water in this country), and separated from it.
Through their eyes the reader sees all the many colors of languages, religions, peoples and customs of this great and beautiful country.
Kipling reached the heights of fame at the turn of the century: it was already on the wane when in 1907 the writer received the Nobel Prize. And after the First World War, his work began to be perceived in England only as annoying and deceitful propaganda.
In Russia, Kipling was more fortunate – however, here he was known mainly as a poet and children’s writer. Nowadays, however, in English-speaking countries, he is becoming a recognized classic. Probably, the world again needed courage and honor, of which he was a singer.
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