On Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads
Rudyard Kipling remains amongst the most elusive writers who have escaped easy labeling. One is tempted, more than 90 years after his death, to level charges of “colonial apologist”, “jingoist” and “culturally obtuse” and while it is foolish to claim that such inferences are impossible to draw from Kipling’s work it is at least as foolish to claim that such adjectives present a complete and incontestable portrait of the man. In truth, Kipling’s sentiments in areas ranging from the military to the cultures of the many lands he set foot in are enigmatic and even contradictory. If nothing else, he demonstrated a fascination with the customs of India and South Africa, albeit through the lenses of a Western Imperialist. Nowhere is the conflicting spectrum of Kipling’s work more evident that in his military poetry, the best of it published in the collection Barrack-Room Ballads in 1892 (though some of the included poems were written in 1890). The collection owes its existence to his...