Author: Rudyard Kipling

Publisher:

Published: 2018-11-07

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 9781730989032

The Five Nations is a collection of poems by English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). It was first published in late 1903, both in the United Kingdom and in U.S.A.Some of the poems were new; some had been published before (notably "Recessional," of 1897), sometimes in different versions. DescriptionIn 1903, the United Kingdom consisted of four nations: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It was soon suggested that Kipling's "five nations" were the "five free nations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa [i.e. Cape Colony], and 'the islands of the sea' [i.e. the British Isles]" all dominated by Britons; and except in the last case, by recent settlers. That suggestion was endorsed some one hundred years later.No author seems to have suggested that the "five nations" included India which, as the British Raj, was the basis of Britain's claim to imperial greatness.In an early (1903) review, American critic Bliss Perry delicately called The Five Nations both "a notable collection" and "singularly restricted in range of interest."The poemsThe poems are divided into two groups. The first is untitled, and covers a wide range of subjects. The second is titled "Service Songs," and mostly relates to the real or imagined experiences of common British soldiers around the turn of the 20th century. .....Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888).His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If-" (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature, and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift."Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the British Empire, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell saw Kipling as "a jingo imperialist," who was "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting." Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."