Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling was born in 1865 to English parents in Bombay, India (Ellmann, O'Clair, and Ramazani 144). When he was six years old, his parents sent him and his sister to England for their education. Unfortunately, his caregivers abused him so badly that in later years Kipling referred to that place as "The House of Desolation," and he began to read books and poems in order to find an escape (Merriman). After six years, Kipling's mother learned about the abuse and enrolled him in the United Services College, where he began to write poems of his own. Eventually Kipling returned to India, where he continued to write, but after a few years he moved back to England. He quickly achieved nationwide fame for his poems and in 1892, he married a woman named Caroline Balestier ("Rudyard Kipling"). The couple moved to the United States, where they started a family, but a few years later went back to England. Sadly, Kipling's eldest daughter Josephine died of pneumonia, and her death tore Kipling apart to the extent that he nearly died as well. When the Boer War broke out, he tried to drown his sorrows by reporting on the war and raising money for troops. Greatly changed by his experience on the front line, after the war was over Kipling spent many years living quietly at home in England. When World War I broke out, once again he went to the front lines as a reporter; sadly, his son died in battle. Kipling continued to write poetry for many years, until he died in London in 1936.

Kipling's poem "Recessional," published in 1897, is written in the form of sestets with a rhyme scheme of ababcc. It was written as a commentary on the Jubilee celebrations, as Kipling felt moved to remind the celebrating people of the tragedies of war and of too much power.

Bibliography

Poem:

Kipling, Rudyard. "Recessional." The Norton Antholody of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Volume 1. Eds. Ellmann, Richard, Robert O'Clair, and Jahan Ramazani. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2003. 147. Print.

Biography:

Merriman, C.D. "Rudyard Kipling: Biography." The Literature Network. Jalic Inc., 2006. Web. Jan. 17 2011. http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/.

Ellmann, Richard, Robert O'Clair, and Jahan Ramazani. The Norton Antholody of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Volume 1. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2003. Print.

"Rudyard Kipling." The Kipling Society. The Kipling Society, n.d. Web. Jan. 17 2011. http://www.kipling.org.uk/kip_fra.htm.