Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet and novelist, chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems about British soldiers in India, tales for children.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling is one of the outstanding British writers. He was born in Bombay on 30th December, 1865. His parents were English. Kipling’s father was professor of architectural sculpture, painter, illustrator and curator of the Lahore Museum. He had considerable influence on his son’s work. Kipling described his father in his most famous novel “Kim”. Kipling’s mother’s name was Alice MacDonald.
As a child Rudyard was quick to learn and alert in games and in solving puzzles. He spent his early childhood in Lahore. He learnt different tales and songs of Indian folklore from his Hindoo servants. Hindoo was the first language he spoke.
At six young Kipling was taken to England and educated at an English College in North Devon. As far as his studies were concerned, he was not brilliant in mathematics, but in history he ranked well. When he went back to India in 1883, he was given a gold medal of the college for a prize essay on history.
All his life Kipling was admired by the people he came in touch with. He was respected for his generosity, his sense of humour and his pleasant ways. He was said to be extremely modest.
Returning to India, Kipling engaged in journalism; in seventeen he became a sub-editor of the “Lahore Civil and Military Gazette”. Аt twenty-one he published his first volume. A year later he attracted public attention as a story-teller. Before he was twenty-four he had brought out six small collections of stories which showed his mastery in the form. Among these early narratives some of the best are “Soldiers Three”, “The Phantom Rickshaw” and “Wee Willie Winkie”. Here was a new master of fiction.
Kipling’s talent was quickly recognized in India. Between 1887 and 1899 Kipling travelled around the world. He visited China, Japan and lived for a few years in America, where he married an American, Caroline Starr Balestier.
During this period Kipling wrote several of his most popular works, which took the reading public by storm. These were stories for children, which became classics. “The Jungle Books” (1894-1895), “Captains Courageous” (1897), “Just so Stories” (1902), “Kim” (1901).
During the South African War (1899-1902) Kipling supported the policy of British expansion that reacted on his literature not to its advantage. The last decade of the 19th century was Rudyard Kipling’s most mature period, while the beginning of the 20th century saw the decline of his talent.
Kipling returned to England from America and buried himself in a little Sussex village. He had lost a daughter; the death of his son during World War I
embittered and almost silenced him.
In 1936 Kipling was at work on a collection of autobiographical notes. He died on 17th January in 1936, a weeks after his seventieth birthday. A year later there appeared “Something Of Myself”, a collection of autobiographical notes containing memoirs, and that ‘something’ about himself which Kipling was willing to disclose.
A talented story-teller, deeply concerned in the burning problems of his time, Kipling towered above many of his contemporaries. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize for literature; he was the first writer and the first Englishman to whom this prize was awarded.
The charm of his stories lies in the exciting plots, the variety of characters. Working-class language is used extensively in his short stories, many of which are about the working people. Rudyard Kipling was one of those rare writers who are equally in prose and in verse. His most attractive qualities as a poet are his excellent rhymes, the swinging rhythms and the music of his verse.
The best and most beloved of Kipling’s prose works is “The Jungle Book”. This work, written in 1894-1895 in America, was intended for children. Kipling depicts the life of wild animals; he shows their character and behaviour.
By the way, Kipling admires those animals that have definite rules of behaviour, and despises those who have not.
As has been said earlier, Kipling wrote “The Jungle Book” for children. The didactic element in it is obvious. But Kipling’s understanding of the real material world around him was so profound that this work grew in depth and attracted the attention of adult readers all over the world.
Kipling is always on the side of the common soldier and the hard-working man whose blood and sweat upheld the British Empire. Kipling’s place is in the march of human progress.