If
Rudyard
Kipling
This famous didactic poem by Nobel-prize winning, British poet Rudyard Kipling
offers a catalogue of advice from a father to a young male, probably his son.
The many qualities he believes are essential to becoming "a
Man" include: self-belief, self-control, stoicism, modesty, humility and
truthfulness.
The poem was published in a collection of short stories and poems called
Rewards and Fairies in 1910. According to Kipling's autobiography Something
of Myself, the poem was inspired by Dr. Jameson, who fought against the
Boers in South Africa in the 1890's.
The poem is often voted Britain’s Favourite poem
The poem fulfils its own
metaphorical advice: Fill the... minute/ With sixty seconds' worth of distance
run. Note, the poem fills its own minute full of breathless advice.
A Didactic Poem
A work meant to give
instruction.
Series of Opposites:
keep... lose
trust... doubt (and all the
others!)
These build up throughout the
poem, but we are only given the 'reward' in the closing line.
After the first 4 lines, you,
you, you, too, the alternate rhyme scheme maintains the momentum of the
counsel: ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH
Structure
4 stanzas of 8 lines. We can
look at the stanzas individually, but the messages contained in each are
overlapping.
Stanza 1: character
traits including self-confidence, courage, patience and honesty. The person
addresses is encouraged not to fall into the usual pitfalls awaiting us in
life. He is encouraged not to be irrational (keep your head), not to doubt
himself (trust yourself), not to be impatient (not be tired by waiting), and so
on.
Stanza 2: lists what you can do for your fellow man, as long as
you are not seeking a personal reward. This stanza is about the hurdles that
must be overcome using a solid work ethic.
Stanza 3: This stanza opens with the suggestion that risk taking
is part of life. We have to be ready to take risks and to fail. In this stanza,
your 'heart and nerve and sinew' can keep you going once your 'winnings have
gone' but, at the end of the day, it is your 'Will' (your own personal inner
drive) that commands all 3: Hold on! Will is capitalised to emphasize the
amount of determination it takes to 'hold on' when all is falling apart.
Stanza 4: There
are 2 pieces of advice in this last stanza: do not be corrupted by power, and
use your time to the full.
Punctuation
Note, this poem is one long
sentence.. which emphasizes the idea that life is one long journey towards a
final destination, a final reward.
The exclamation marks at the
end of the last two stanzas should be seen as a final signs of encouragement (a
poetic slap on the back!).
In the third stanza, it is
'Will' (human determination) which is speaking to the 'heart and nerve and
sinew'. In the fourth stanza the speaker is speaking to the young male, us.
Future Conditional Tense
The repeated use of future
conditional tense underlines the sense that nothing is sure and that we each
build our own future selves.
Each of the lines contains
the first part of the future conditional construction "If ..." the
second part of the construction comes at the end of stanza four: yours is...
you'll be.
The situations mentioned are
hypothetical and general. The speaker can only hypothesize about the listener's
future. This is part of the charm of the poem, as any listener can layer the
advice onto actual events in their own life (think about the charm of reading
your horoscope).
Second Person Singular
The narrator holds our interest
as he addresses us through pronoun 'you.'
Of course, 'you' can both be singular and plural, it can be used to
refer to an individual you and sense of the wider male/reading population.
Imperatives
Don't do this, don't do
that.... yet, the advice feels more kind hearted than commanding.
The speaker is advising us to
avoid excesses, to maintain a 'stiff upper lip,' to stay on the straight and
narrow: don't give way to hating.
Personification
Personification is used to
emphasise the danger of falling captive to 'Triumph and Disaster.'
The Reward
"Yours is the Earth and
everything that's in it, and - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"
Capitalisation of ‘Man’ emphasises the
importance and finality of this state.
Very God-like reward, echoes
of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Note, though, that being "a Man" is
even more important than possessing "the earth."
The final contrasting
coupling of 'Man' and 'my son' is a final reminder that the person addressed is
still the 'son.' The road ahead will be long!
Rudyard Kipling
Websites
Online IGCSE worksheet!
Compare to other poems in the
anthology:
Prayer Before Birth
Poem at 39
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Dark Night
