Rudyard Kipling Research Paper
Rudyard Kipling
Childhood and Early Life
Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865 in Bombay, in British India to Alice Kipling (née MacDonald) and (John) Lockwood Kipling. Alice (one of four remarkable Victorian sisters) was a vivacious woman about whom a future Viceroy of India would say, "Dullness and Mrs. Kipling cannot exist in the same room." Lockwood Kipling, a sculptor and pottery designer, was the Principal and Professor of Architectural Sculpture at the newly founded Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art and Industry in Bombay.
John and Alice had met in 1863 and courted at Rudyard Lake in Rudyard, Staffordshire, England. They married, and moved to India in 1865. They had been so moved by the beauty of the Rudyard …show more content…
Lake area that when their first child was born, they included a reference to the lake in naming him. Alice's sister Georgiana was married to painter Edward Burne-Jones, and her sister Agnes was married to painter Edward Poynter. Kipling's most famous relative was his first cousin, Stanley Baldwin, who was Conservative Prime Minister of the UK three times in the 1920s and 1930s. Kipling's birth home still stands on the campus of the J J School of Art in Mumbai and for many years were used as the Dean's residence. Mumbai historian Foy Nissen points out, however, that although the cottage bears a plaque stating that this is the site where Kipling was born, the original cottage was torn down decades ago and a new one was built in its place. The wooden bungalow has been empty and locked up for years.
According to Bernice M. Murphy, "Kipling’s parents considered themselves 'Anglo-Indians' (a term used in the 19th century for people of British origin living in India) and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent features in his fiction." Kipling referred to such conflicts; for example: "In the afternoon heats before we took our sleep, she (the Portuguese ayah, or nanny) or Meeta (the Hindu bearer, or male attendant) would tell us stories and Indian nursery songs all unforgotten, and we were sent into the dining-room after we had been dressed, with the caution 'Speak English now to Papa and Mamma.' So one spoke 'English', haltingly translated out of the vernacular idiom that one thought and dreamed in".
Early Travels
The Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, the newspaper which Kipling was to call "mistress and most true love," appeared six days a week throughout the year except for a one-day break each for Christmas and Easter. Kipling was worked hard by editor Stephen Wheeler, but Kipling's need to write was unstoppable. In 1886 he published his first collection of verse, Departmental Ditties. That year also brought a change of editors at the newspaper; Kay Robinson, the new editor, allowed more creative freedom and Kipling was asked to contribute short stories to the newspaper.
During the summer of 1883, Kipling visited Shimla (then known as Simla), a well-known hill station and summer capital of British India. By then it was established practice for the Viceroy of India and the government to move to Simla for six months and the town became a "centre of power as well as pleasure." Kipling's family became yearly visitors to Simla and Lockwood Kipling was asked to serve in the Christ Church there. Rudyard Kipling returned to Simla for his annual leave each year from 1885 to 1888, and the town figured prominently in many of the stories that he wrote for the Gazette. He describes this time: "My month’s leave at Simla, or whatever Hill Station my people went to, was pure joy—every golden hour counted. It began in heat and discomfort, by rail and road. It ended in the cool evening, with a wood fire in one’s bedroom, and next morn—thirty more of them ahead!—the early cup of tea, the Mother who brought it in, and the long talks of us all together again. One had leisure to work, too, at whatever play-work was in one’s head, and that was usually full." Back in Lahore, some thirty-nine stories appeared in the Gazette between November 1886 and June 1887. Most of these stories were included in Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling's first prose collection, which was published in Calcutta in January 1888, a month after his 22nd birthday. Kipling's time in Lahore, however, had come to an end. In November 1887 he was transferred to the Gazette's much larger sister newspaper, The Pioneer, in Allahabad in the United Provinces.
Kipling's writing continued at a frenetic pace; in 1888 he published six collections of short stories: Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw, and Wee Willie Winkie, containing a total of 41 stories, some quite long. In addition, as The Pioneer's special correspondent in western region of Rajputana, he wrote many sketches that were later collected in Letters of Marque and published in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel. http://www.poemhunter.com/rudyard-kipling/biography/ The Young Writer
In 1882, Kipling was told by his parents that they didn't have enough money to send him to college. Instead, they had him return to India. It was a powerful moment in the young writer's life. The sights and sounds, even the language, which he'd believed he'd forgotten, rushed back to him upon his arrival. Kipling made his home with his parents in Lahore and, with his father's help, found a job with a local newspaper. The job offered Kipling a good excuse to discover his surroundings. Nighttime, especially, proved to be valuable for the young writer. Kipling was a man of two worlds, somebody who was accepted by both his British counterparts and the local population. Suffering from insomnia,he roamed the city streets and gained access to the brothels and opium dens that rarely opened their doors to common Englishmen.
Kipling's experiences during this time formed the backbone for a series of stories he began to write and publish. They were eventually assembled into a collection of 40 short stories called Plain Tales from the Hills, which gained wide popularity in England.
In 1889, seven years after he had left England, Kipling returned to its shores in hopes of leveraging the modest amount of celebrity his book of short stories had earned him. In London, he met Wolcott Balestier, an American agent and publisher who quickly became one of Kipling's great friends and supporters. The two men grew incredibly close, and even traveled together to the United States, where Balestier introduced his fellow writer to his childhood home of Brattleboro, Vermont.
Around this time, Kipling's star power started to grow. In addition toPlain Tales from the Hills, Kipling also published a second collection of short stories, Wee Willie Winkie (1888), and American Notes(1891), which chronicled his early impressions of America. In 1892, he also published his first major poetry success, Barrack-Room Ballads.
Kipling's friendship with Balestier changed the young writer's life. He soon got to know Balestier's family, in particular his sister, Carrie. The two appeared to be just friends, but during the Christmas holiday in 1891, Kipling, who had traveled back to India to see his family, received an urgent cable from Carrie. Wolcott had died suddenly of typhoid fever and Carrie needed Kipling to be with her.
Kipling rushed back to England, and within eight days of his return, the two married at a small ceremony, attended by American writer Henry James.
Life in America
Following their wedding, the Kiplings set off on an adventurous honeymoon that took them to Canada and then on to Japan.
But like so much of Kipling's life, good fortune was accompanied by hard luck. During the Japanese leg of the journey, Kipling learned that the New Oriental Banking Corporation had failed. The Kiplings were broke.
Left only with what they had with them, the young couple decided to travel to Brattleboro, Vermont, where much of Carrie's family still resided. Kipling fell in love with life in the States, and the two decided to settle there. In the spring of 1891, the Kiplings purchased from Carrie's brother, Beatty, a piece of land just north of Brattleboro and had a large home constructed, which they called "The Naulahka."
Kipling seemed to adore his new life, which soon saw the Kiplings welcome their first child, a daughter named Josephine (born in 1893), and a second daughter, Elsie (born in 1896). A third child, John, was born in 1897, after the Kiplings had left America.
As a writer, too, Kipling flourished. His work during this time included The Jungle Book (1894), The Naulahka: A Story of the West and East (1892) and The Second Jungle Book (1895), among others. Kipling was delighted to be around children—a characteristic that was apparent in his writing. His tales enchanted boys and girls all over the English-speaking world. By the age of
32,
Kipling was the highest-paid writer in the world.But life again took a dramatic turn for the family when Kipling had a major falling out with Carrie's brother, Beatty. The two men quarreled, and when Kipling made noise about taking his brother-in-law to court because of threats Beatty had made to his life, newspapers across America broadcast the spat on their front pages.The gentle Kipling was embarrassed by the attention, and about how his celebrity had turned against him. As a result, he and his family left Vermont for a new life back in England.
Life in England
In 1902, the Kiplings bought a large estate in Sussex known as Bateman's. The property had been erected in 1634, and for the private Kiplings, it offered the kind of isolation they now cherished. With its lush gardens and classic details, Kipling revered the new home."Behold us," he wrote in November 1902, "lawful owners of a grey stone, lichened house —A.D. 1634 over the door—beamed, paneled, with old oak staircase and all untouched and unfaked."Here, Kipling found some of the happiness he thought he had forever lost, following the death of Josephine. He was dedicated as ever to his writing, something Carrie helped ensure. Adopting the role of the head of the household, she held reporters at bay when they came calling and was the person in the family who issued directions to both staff and children.
Family Tragedy
In the winter of 1899, Carrie, who was homesick, decided that the whole family needed to travel back to New York to see her mother. But the journey across the Atlantic was brutal, and New York was frigid. Both Kipling and young Josephine arrived in the States gravely, ill with pneumonia. For days, the world kept careful watch on the state of Kipling's health as newspapers reported on his condition. The New York Times reported a front-page story on his health.
Kipling did recover, but his beloved Josephine did not. The family waited until Kipling was strong enough to hear the news, and even then, Carrie could not bear to break it to him, asking his publisher, Frank Doubleday, to do so. To those who knew him, it was clear that Kipling never recovered from her death. He vowed never to return to America. http://www.biography.com/people/rudyard-kipling-9365581 The Road to Success
In 1902, Kipling published another story Just So Stories for Little Children which would become one of his most acclaimed works following the success of Kim. He further wrote two science fictions With the Night Mail and As Easy as A.B.C. which made into print in 1905 and 1912 respectively.
The most active phase of his life was the first decade of 20th century, when he was at the peak of his creative best. For him, 1907 brought along with it the greatest honor of the time, the Noble Prize for Literature. At the award function in Stockholm on 10 December 1907, Kipling became the first English language recipient of this great honor.
After this great accomplishment, came two great poetry and story compendiums: Puck of Pook’s hill and Reward and Fairies which were published in 1906 and 1910 respectively. The latter contained one of the most favorite poems of all times in English literature called “If…” This marvelous poem inciting readers for self-command and phlegm became Kipling’s one of the most famous poetry creation of all the times.
Kipling always remained politically expressive with his creations. He commiserated with the anti-Home Rule stand of the Irish Unionist .He also stroked chords of intellectuality with the Dublin-born leader Edward Carson who raised a potent voice against "Rome Rule” and also publicized his staunch opinion through his creations. Kipling also projected himself as a strong opponent of the Principles of Democratic centralism and Quasi-military discipline through his creations.
Despite his intellectual asset and enormous popularity, he was never made Poet Laureate. Different people quote different reasons behind it, some are of the view that he himself turned down the offer while others are of the opinion that Queen Victoria didn’t approve of him. However, this never came as a hurdle in Kipling’s literary career, he is still regarded as the best author and poet, English Language could ever get.
Later years & Death
Tragedy once again hit the family when his only son John Kipling died in 1915 at the 'battle of Loos'. The untimely death of his son made Rudyard blame himself for his role in getting John in the Army at an early age of 17. The incident made him write a poem "My Boy Jack" in which he deeply mourns for his son cursing and blaming himself.
In year 1922, Kipling was elected the Lord Rector of St Andrews University in Scotland and remained on the position till 1925. Towards the end of his life, Kipling chose to take a backseat with his writing career, though he did not completely abandon it, the output was lesser. He died of a hemorrhage on 18 January 1936 and was cremated at Golden Green Crematorium.
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/rudyard-kipling-40.php
Childhood and Early Life
Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865 in Bombay, in British India to Alice Kipling (née MacDonald) and (John) Lockwood Kipling. Alice (one of four remarkable Victorian sisters) was a vivacious woman about whom a future Viceroy of India would say, "Dullness and Mrs. Kipling cannot exist in the same room." Lockwood Kipling, a sculptor and pottery designer, was the Principal and Professor of Architectural Sculpture at the newly founded Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art and Industry in Bombay.
John and Alice had met in 1863 and courted at Rudyard Lake in Rudyard, Staffordshire, England. They married, and moved to India in 1865. They had been so moved by the beauty of the Rudyard …show more content…
Lake area that when their first child was born, they included a reference to the lake in naming him. Alice's sister Georgiana was married to painter Edward Burne-Jones, and her sister Agnes was married to painter Edward Poynter. Kipling's most famous relative was his first cousin, Stanley Baldwin, who was Conservative Prime Minister of the UK three times in the 1920s and 1930s. Kipling's birth home still stands on the campus of the J J School of Art in Mumbai and for many years were used as the Dean's residence. Mumbai historian Foy Nissen points out, however, that although the cottage bears a plaque stating that this is the site where Kipling was born, the original cottage was torn down decades ago and a new one was built in its place. The wooden bungalow has been empty and locked up for years.
According to Bernice M. Murphy, "Kipling’s parents considered themselves 'Anglo-Indians' (a term used in the 19th century for people of British origin living in India) and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent features in his fiction." Kipling referred to such conflicts; for example: "In the afternoon heats before we took our sleep, she (the Portuguese ayah, or nanny) or Meeta (the Hindu bearer, or male attendant) would tell us stories and Indian nursery songs all unforgotten, and we were sent into the dining-room after we had been dressed, with the caution 'Speak English now to Papa and Mamma.' So one spoke 'English', haltingly translated out of the vernacular idiom that one thought and dreamed in".
Early Travels
The Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, the newspaper which Kipling was to call "mistress and most true love," appeared six days a week throughout the year except for a one-day break each for Christmas and Easter. Kipling was worked hard by editor Stephen Wheeler, but Kipling's need to write was unstoppable. In 1886 he published his first collection of verse, Departmental Ditties. That year also brought a change of editors at the newspaper; Kay Robinson, the new editor, allowed more creative freedom and Kipling was asked to contribute short stories to the newspaper.
During the summer of 1883, Kipling visited Shimla (then known as Simla), a well-known hill station and summer capital of British India. By then it was established practice for the Viceroy of India and the government to move to Simla for six months and the town became a "centre of power as well as pleasure." Kipling's family became yearly visitors to Simla and Lockwood Kipling was asked to serve in the Christ Church there. Rudyard Kipling returned to Simla for his annual leave each year from 1885 to 1888, and the town figured prominently in many of the stories that he wrote for the Gazette. He describes this time: "My month’s leave at Simla, or whatever Hill Station my people went to, was pure joy—every golden hour counted. It began in heat and discomfort, by rail and road. It ended in the cool evening, with a wood fire in one’s bedroom, and next morn—thirty more of them ahead!—the early cup of tea, the Mother who brought it in, and the long talks of us all together again. One had leisure to work, too, at whatever play-work was in one’s head, and that was usually full." Back in Lahore, some thirty-nine stories appeared in the Gazette between November 1886 and June 1887. Most of these stories were included in Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling's first prose collection, which was published in Calcutta in January 1888, a month after his 22nd birthday. Kipling's time in Lahore, however, had come to an end. In November 1887 he was transferred to the Gazette's much larger sister newspaper, The Pioneer, in Allahabad in the United Provinces.
Kipling's writing continued at a frenetic pace; in 1888 he published six collections of short stories: Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw, and Wee Willie Winkie, containing a total of 41 stories, some quite long. In addition, as The Pioneer's special correspondent in western region of Rajputana, he wrote many sketches that were later collected in Letters of Marque and published in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel. http://www.poemhunter.com/rudyard-kipling/biography/ The Young Writer
In 1882, Kipling was told by his parents that they didn't have enough money to send him to college. Instead, they had him return to India. It was a powerful moment in the young writer's life. The sights and sounds, even the language, which he'd believed he'd forgotten, rushed back to him upon his arrival. Kipling made his home with his parents in Lahore and, with his father's help, found a job with a local newspaper. The job offered Kipling a good excuse to discover his surroundings. Nighttime, especially, proved to be valuable for the young writer. Kipling was a man of two worlds, somebody who was accepted by both his British counterparts and the local population. Suffering from insomnia,he roamed the city streets and gained access to the brothels and opium dens that rarely opened their doors to common Englishmen.
Kipling's experiences during this time formed the backbone for a series of stories he began to write and publish. They were eventually assembled into a collection of 40 short stories called Plain Tales from the Hills, which gained wide popularity in England.
In 1889, seven years after he had left England, Kipling returned to its shores in hopes of leveraging the modest amount of celebrity his book of short stories had earned him. In London, he met Wolcott Balestier, an American agent and publisher who quickly became one of Kipling's great friends and supporters. The two men grew incredibly close, and even traveled together to the United States, where Balestier introduced his fellow writer to his childhood home of Brattleboro, Vermont.
Around this time, Kipling's star power started to grow. In addition toPlain Tales from the Hills, Kipling also published a second collection of short stories, Wee Willie Winkie (1888), and American Notes(1891), which chronicled his early impressions of America. In 1892, he also published his first major poetry success, Barrack-Room Ballads.
Kipling's friendship with Balestier changed the young writer's life. He soon got to know Balestier's family, in particular his sister, Carrie. The two appeared to be just friends, but during the Christmas holiday in 1891, Kipling, who had traveled back to India to see his family, received an urgent cable from Carrie. Wolcott had died suddenly of typhoid fever and Carrie needed Kipling to be with her.
Kipling rushed back to England, and within eight days of his return, the two married at a small ceremony, attended by American writer Henry James.
Life in America
Following their wedding, the Kiplings set off on an adventurous honeymoon that took them to Canada and then on to Japan.
But like so much of Kipling's life, good fortune was accompanied by hard luck. During the Japanese leg of the journey, Kipling learned that the New Oriental Banking Corporation had failed. The Kiplings were broke.
Left only with what they had with them, the young couple decided to travel to Brattleboro, Vermont, where much of Carrie's family still resided. Kipling fell in love with life in the States, and the two decided to settle there. In the spring of 1891, the Kiplings purchased from Carrie's brother, Beatty, a piece of land just north of Brattleboro and had a large home constructed, which they called "The Naulahka."
Kipling seemed to adore his new life, which soon saw the Kiplings welcome their first child, a daughter named Josephine (born in 1893), and a second daughter, Elsie (born in 1896). A third child, John, was born in 1897, after the Kiplings had left America.
As a writer, too, Kipling flourished. His work during this time included The Jungle Book (1894), The Naulahka: A Story of the West and East (1892) and The Second Jungle Book (1895), among others. Kipling was delighted to be around children—a characteristic that was apparent in his writing. His tales enchanted boys and girls all over the English-speaking world. By the age of
32,
Kipling was the highest-paid writer in the world.But life again took a dramatic turn for the family when Kipling had a major falling out with Carrie's brother, Beatty. The two men quarreled, and when Kipling made noise about taking his brother-in-law to court because of threats Beatty had made to his life, newspapers across America broadcast the spat on their front pages.The gentle Kipling was embarrassed by the attention, and about how his celebrity had turned against him. As a result, he and his family left Vermont for a new life back in England.
Life in England
In 1902, the Kiplings bought a large estate in Sussex known as Bateman's. The property had been erected in 1634, and for the private Kiplings, it offered the kind of isolation they now cherished. With its lush gardens and classic details, Kipling revered the new home."Behold us," he wrote in November 1902, "lawful owners of a grey stone, lichened house —A.D. 1634 over the door—beamed, paneled, with old oak staircase and all untouched and unfaked."Here, Kipling found some of the happiness he thought he had forever lost, following the death of Josephine. He was dedicated as ever to his writing, something Carrie helped ensure. Adopting the role of the head of the household, she held reporters at bay when they came calling and was the person in the family who issued directions to both staff and children.
Family Tragedy
In the winter of 1899, Carrie, who was homesick, decided that the whole family needed to travel back to New York to see her mother. But the journey across the Atlantic was brutal, and New York was frigid. Both Kipling and young Josephine arrived in the States gravely, ill with pneumonia. For days, the world kept careful watch on the state of Kipling's health as newspapers reported on his condition. The New York Times reported a front-page story on his health.
Kipling did recover, but his beloved Josephine did not. The family waited until Kipling was strong enough to hear the news, and even then, Carrie could not bear to break it to him, asking his publisher, Frank Doubleday, to do so. To those who knew him, it was clear that Kipling never recovered from her death. He vowed never to return to America. http://www.biography.com/people/rudyard-kipling-9365581 The Road to Success
In 1902, Kipling published another story Just So Stories for Little Children which would become one of his most acclaimed works following the success of Kim. He further wrote two science fictions With the Night Mail and As Easy as A.B.C. which made into print in 1905 and 1912 respectively.
The most active phase of his life was the first decade of 20th century, when he was at the peak of his creative best. For him, 1907 brought along with it the greatest honor of the time, the Noble Prize for Literature. At the award function in Stockholm on 10 December 1907, Kipling became the first English language recipient of this great honor.
After this great accomplishment, came two great poetry and story compendiums: Puck of Pook’s hill and Reward and Fairies which were published in 1906 and 1910 respectively. The latter contained one of the most favorite poems of all times in English literature called “If…” This marvelous poem inciting readers for self-command and phlegm became Kipling’s one of the most famous poetry creation of all the times.
Kipling always remained politically expressive with his creations. He commiserated with the anti-Home Rule stand of the Irish Unionist .He also stroked chords of intellectuality with the Dublin-born leader Edward Carson who raised a potent voice against "Rome Rule” and also publicized his staunch opinion through his creations. Kipling also projected himself as a strong opponent of the Principles of Democratic centralism and Quasi-military discipline through his creations.
Despite his intellectual asset and enormous popularity, he was never made Poet Laureate. Different people quote different reasons behind it, some are of the view that he himself turned down the offer while others are of the opinion that Queen Victoria didn’t approve of him. However, this never came as a hurdle in Kipling’s literary career, he is still regarded as the best author and poet, English Language could ever get.
Later years & Death
Tragedy once again hit the family when his only son John Kipling died in 1915 at the 'battle of Loos'. The untimely death of his son made Rudyard blame himself for his role in getting John in the Army at an early age of 17. The incident made him write a poem "My Boy Jack" in which he deeply mourns for his son cursing and blaming himself.
In year 1922, Kipling was elected the Lord Rector of St Andrews University in Scotland and remained on the position till 1925. Towards the end of his life, Kipling chose to take a backseat with his writing career, though he did not completely abandon it, the output was lesser. He died of a hemorrhage on 18 January 1936 and was cremated at Golden Green Crematorium.
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/rudyard-kipling-40.php