Kipling, Joseph Rudyard

Kipling, Joseph Rudyard
(1865–1936)
   A note British poet and author, Rudyard Kipling is now somewhat inaccurately remembered as an uncritical propagandist of imperialism. Kipling was born in India to English parents. He was left alone in England from the age of six, his parents returning to India, and attended minor public schools where his literary talents began to show themselves. He began his career as a journalist with a newspaper in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab. In 1886, he published Departmental Ditties, and two years later Plain Tales from the Hills, books of stories based on the lives of Anglo-Indian officials and soldiers. Kim, published in 1901, is probably his most famous novel. Kipling moved to London in 1889, and although as yet a man in his twenties, enjoyed enhanced fame lubricated by brisk sales. Kipling traveled extensively, particularly in the United States, staying for a time in Vermont, the home of his wife’s family. After a serious illness, he moved to South Africa, getting there in time for the South African War, in which he served as a military journalist.
   The South African War turned Kipling into an ardent supporter of conscription and national preparedness. In the early years of the twentieth century, his attacks on liberalism were ferocious to the point of alienating many of his readers, and he became an ardent Unionist. During World War I, Kipling, considering it the duty of a writer to support his country, turned out a massive volume of patriotic prose. Unusual for a man of first-rate literary talent, he got along well with the great and the good, becoming a friend even of King George V. For the last two decades of his life, he was increasingly ill with an ulcer only belatedly diagnosed; it killed him in 1936. Too often reduced to his well-known 1898 injunction to “take up the white man ’ s burden, ” Kipling portrayed empire, in that poem as well as elsewhere, as a necessary but unrewarding duty. The year before “White Man’s Burden,” on the occasion of Queen Victoria ’s diamond jubilee, he had written the prophetic warning against imperial triumphalism, “lo, all our pomp of yesterday/is one with Nineveh and Tyre.”
   See also <>; <>; <>.
   FURTHER READING:
    Kipling, Rudyard. Something of Myself. Edited by T. Pinney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990;
    Smith, Martin Seymour. Rudyard Kipling, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.
   MARK F. PROUDMAN

Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800–1914. 2014.

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  • Kipling, (Joseph)Rudyard — Kip·ling (kĭpʹlĭng), (Joseph) Rudyard. 1865 1936. British writer whose major works, including the short story “The Man Who Would Be King” (1889), a collection of children s stories, The Jungle Book (1894), and the novel Kim (1901), are set in… …   Universalium

  • Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard — born Dec. 30, 1865, Bombay, India died Jan. 18, 1936, London, Eng. Indian born British novelist, short story writer, and poet. The son of a museum curator, he was reared in England but returned to India as a journalist. He soon became famous for… …   Universalium

  • Kipling, Joseph Rudyard — (1865 1936)    He was born in Bombay (Mumbai), India, where his father was curator of the Lahore museum. From the age of six to eleven he was fostered at Southsea, England, and his education was mainly at the United Services College at Westward… …   British and Irish poets

  • Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard — (30 dic. 1865, Bombay, India–18 ene. 1936, Londres, Inglaterra). Novelista, cuentista y poeta británico nacido en India. Hijo de un curador de museo, Kipling fue criado en Inglaterra, pero regresó a India como periodista. Pronto se hizo famoso… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Joseph Rudyard Kipling — Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling [ˈdʒəʊzɪf ˈɹʌdjəd ˈkɪplɪŋ] (* 30. Dezember 1865 in Bombay; † 18. Januar 1936 in London) war ein britischer Schriftsteller und Dichter, der 1907 den …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Joseph Rudyard Kipling — noun English author of novels and poetry who was born in India (1865 1936) • Syn: ↑Kipling, ↑Rudyard Kipling • Instance Hypernyms: ↑writer, ↑author …   Useful english dictionary

  • Rudyard Kipling — Joseph Rudyard Kipling [ˈdʒəʊzɪf ˈɹʌdjəd ˈkɪplɪŋ] (* 30. Dezember 1865 in Bombay; † 18. Januar 1936 in London) war ein britischer Schriftsteller und Dichter, der 190 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Literaturnobelpreis 1907: Joseph Rudyard Kipling —   Der Brite erhielt den Nobelpreis für die in seinen Werken innewohnende Stärke in Auffassung und Schilderungskunst.    Biografie   Joseph Rudyard Kipling, * Bombay (Indien) 30. 12. 1865, ✝ London 18. 1. 1936; ab 1871 Erziehung in England in zwei …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Rudyard Kipling — Infobox Writer name = Rudyard Kipling caption =Kipling in his study, 1895 pseudonym = birthname = birthdate = birth date|1865|12|30|mf=y birthplace = Bombay, India deathdate = death date and age|df=yes|1936|1|18|1865|12|30 deathplace = Middlesex… …   Wikipedia

  • Rudyard Kipling — noun English author of novels and poetry who was born in India (1865 1936) • Syn: ↑Kipling, ↑Joseph Rudyard Kipling • Instance Hypernyms: ↑writer, ↑author * * * Rudyard Kipling …   Useful english dictionary

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