Rudyard kipling (1865 – 1936)

1. Pay attention to the pronunciation of the proper and geographical names:

Rudyard (Joseph) Kipling ['rAdjqd ('GqVzIf) 'kIplIN]

India ['Indjq] Burma ['bE:mq]

John Lookwood [GPn 'lPkwVd]

Alice Macdonald ['xlIs mqk'dPnqld]

England ['INglqnd]

the United Services College [Dq jH'naItId 'sE:vIsIz 'kPlIG]

Stalky ['stLkI] Anglo-Indian ['xNglOu 'Indjqn]

Wee Willie Winkie [wI 'wIlI 'wInkI]

Lord Byron [lLd 'baIrqn]

Alfred, Lord Tennyson ['xlfrId lLd 'tenIsn]

Caroline Balistier ["kxrq'laIn bq'lIstIq]

Vermont [vE:'mPnt] America [q'merIkq]

Sussex ['sAsIks] English ['INglIS]

South Africa ['saVT 'xfrIkq]

Cecil Rhodes ['sesIl 'rqVdz]

European ["jVqrq'pIqn] T.S. Eliot ['eljqt]

2. Read the text:

Rudyard (Joseph) Kipling (1865 – 1936), English novelist, short-story writer, and poet chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, his tales and poems of British soldiers in India and Burma, and his tales for children. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.

Life. Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling, was an artist and scholar who had considerable influence on his son’s work. His mother was Alice Macdonald, who had very important relatives who supported Kipling in his life.

Much of his childhood was unhappy. Kipling was taken to England by his parents at the age of 6 and was left at a foster home. Then he went on to the United Services College, a new, inexpensive boarding school. It haunted him for the rest of his life. He showed it in his nine short stories entitled “Stalky & Co.” (1899). The Stalky saga is one of Kipling’s greatest imaginative achievements.

Kipling returned to India in 1882 and worked for 7 years as a journalist. His parents, although not officially important, belonged to the highest Anglo-Indian society, and Rudyard thus had opportunities for exploring the whole range of that life. All the while he had remained keenly observant of the thronging spectacle of native India, which had engaged his interest and affection from earliest childhood. He was quickly filling the journals he worked for with prose sketches and light verse. He published “Departmental Ditties” in 1896, “Plain Tales from the Hills” in 1888, and between 1887 and 1889 he brought out six paper-covered volumes of short stories among them: “Soldiers Three” (1888); “Wee Willie Winkie” (1888). When he returned to England in 1889, his reputation had preceded him, and within a year he was acclaimed as one of the most brilliant prose writers of his time. His fame was redoubled upon the publication of “Barrack-Room Ballads” (1892). Not since the English poet Lord Byron had such a reputation been achieved so rapidly. When the poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson died in 1892, it may be said that Kipling took his place in popular estimation.

In 1892 Kipling married Caroline Balistier, the sister of one of the American publishers. The young couple moved to the United States and settled on Mrs. Kipling’s property in Vermont, but they couldn’t adjust to life in America and the Kiplings returned to England.

[ During his years in America, however, he published “The Light That Failed” (1890), the story of a painter going blind and left by the woman he loved; “Captain Courageous” (1897) full of the sense of adventure; “Kim” (1901), which, although essentially a children’s book, must be considered a classic, and “The Jungle Books” (1894 and 1895), stylistically superb and further proof that Kipling was best at telling a story but inconsistent in producing balanced novels.

In 1902 Kipling bought a house in Sussex, which remained his home until his death. The first book he produced here – “Just So Stories”, animal fables linked by poems for young children, which has been and is still admired by generations of young readers. Sussex was also the background of much of his later writing – “Traffics and Discoveries” (1904), “Rewards and Fairies” (1910), “Actions and Reactions” (1909) – books devoted to some episodes in English history for children and all sorts of stories linked by poems. ]

In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In South Africa, where he spent much time, he was given a house by Cecil Rhodes, the diamond magnate and South African statesman. This association fostered Kipling’s imperialist persuasions, which were to grow stronger with the years. He had a genuine sense of a civilizing mission of England that required every Englishman to bring European culture to the uncivilized world. Kipling’s ideas were not in accord with much that was liberal in the thought of the age, as he became older he was an increasingly isolated figure. As for his literary works of this period he wrote “A Diversity of Creatures” (1917), stories linked by poems; “Debits and Credits” (1926); “Limits and Renewals” (1932). He also published his verse – “Songs from Books” (1912, enlarged 1913); “The Years Between” (1919). One of his books entitled “Something of Myself, for My Friends Known and Unknown” was published posthumously in 1937.

Assessment. As a poet Kipling scarcely ranks high, although his rehabilitation has been attempted by so distinguished a critic as T.S. Eliot. His verse is indeed vigorous, and in dealing with the lives of soldiers and sailors it breaks new ground. But balladry, music-hall song, and popular hymnology provide its unassuming basis; and even at its most serious – as in “Recessional” (1897) and similar pieces in which Kipling addressed himself to his fellow countrymen in times of crisis – the effect is rhetorical rather than imaginative. But it is otherwise with his prose. In his adult storytelling, he displays a steadily developing art. While his later stories cannot exactly be called better than the earlier ones, they are good – and they bring a subtler technical proficiently to the exploration of deeper themes. His later art is compressed and elliptical in manner and sombre in many of its themes.

3. Answer the questions to discuss the text in detail. Use the text for reference.

1. Why was R. Kipling unhappy in his childhood? Did he show his

school years in his short stories?

2. Why did he return to India? What was he there? What works were published in these years? What genres did they belong to?

3. Prove that R. Kipling was best at telling a story but inconsistent in producing balanced novels. What short stories were considered to be his best?

4. Why are his tales admired by children of many generations? Where do his tales usually take place? Are they fables connected by poems?

5. How can the creative work of R. Kipling be assessed? What was the effect of his poetry? What did he display in his prose?

4. Translate in writing the passage in brackets.

5. Speak on the life and creative work of R. Kipling.