William's sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth , to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. They had three other siblings: Richard, the eldest, who became a lawyer; John, born after Dorothy, who went to sea and died in when the ship of which he was captain, the Earl of Abergavenny , was wrecked off the south coast of England; and Christopher , the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Wordsworth's father was a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections, lived in a large mansion in the small town. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant from him until his death in William was also allowed to use his father's library. William also spent time at his mother's parents' house in Penrith , Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors, but did not get along with his grandparents or his uncle, who also lived there.
His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide. Wordsworth was taught to read by his mother and attended, first, a tiny school of low quality in Cockermouth, then a school in Penrith for the children of upper-class families, where he was taught by Ann Birkett, who insisted on instilling in her students traditions that included pursuing both scholarly and local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day and Shrove Tuesday. Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator , but little else.
It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, who later became his wife. After the death of Wordsworth's mother, in , his father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire now in Cumbria and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for another nine years.
Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in In he went on a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy. In November , Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enchanted with the Republican movement.
He fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Financial problems and Britain 's tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year. The Reign of Terror left Wordsworth thoroughly disillusioned with the French Revolution and the outbreak of armed hostilities between Britain and France prevented him from seeing Annette and his daughter for some years.
The purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson. Mary was anxious that Wordsworth should do more for Caroline.
The year saw the first publication of poems by Wordsworth, in the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. In he received a legacy of pounds from Raisley Calvert and became able to pursue a career as a poet. It was also in that he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. Together Wordsworth and Coleridge with insights from Dorothy produced Lyrical Ballads , an important work in the English Romantic movement. One of Wordsworth's most famous poems, " Tintern Abbey ", was published in this collection, along with Coleridge's " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ".
The second edition, published in , had only Wordsworth listed as the author, and included a preface to the poems. Wordsworth also gives his famous definition of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in He attempted to get the play staged in November , but it was rejected by Thomas Harris , the manager of the Covent Garden Theatre , who proclaimed it "impossible that the play should succeed in the representation".
The rebuff was not received lightly by Wordsworth and the play was not published until , after substantial revision. Wordsworth, Dorothy and Coleridge travelled to Germany in the autumn of While Coleridge was intellectually stimulated by the journey, its main effect on Wordsworth was to produce homesickness. He wrote a number of other famous poems in Goslar, including " The Lucy poems ". In the Autumn of , Wordsworth and his sister returned to England and visited the Hutchinson family at Sockburn. When Coleridge arrived back in England he travelled to the North with their publisher Joseph Cottle to meet Wordsworth and undertake a proposed tour of the Lake District.
The ruling power is always faced with the question, 'In such and such circumstances, what would you do?
Rudyard Kipling
Where it is a permanent and pensioned opposition, as in England, the quality of its thought deteriorates accordingly. Moreover, anyone who starts out with a pessimistic, reactionary view of life tends to be justified by events, for Utopia never arrives and 'the gods of the copybook headings', as Kipling himself put it, always return.
Kipling sold out to the British governing class, not financially but emotionally. This warped his political judgement, for the British ruling class were not what he imagined, and it led him into abysses of folly and snobbery, but he gained a corresponding advantage from having at least tried to imagine what action and responsibility are like.
He dealt largely in platitudes, and since we live in a world of platitudes, much of what he said sticks. Even his worst follies seem less shallow and less irritating than the 'enlightened' utterances of the same period, such as Wilde's epigrams or the collection of cracker-mottoes at the end of Man and Superman. The poet Alison Brackenbury writes that "Kipling is poetry's Dickens, an outsider and journalist with an unrivalled ear for sound and speech. The English folk singer Peter Bellamy was a great lover of Kipling's poetry, much of which he believed to have been influenced by English traditional folk forms.
He recorded several albums of Kipling's verse set to traditional airs, or to tunes of his own composition written in traditional style. Kipling is often quoted in discussions of contemporary political and social issues. Political singer-songwriter Billy Bragg , who attempts to reclaim English nationalism from the right-wing, has reclaimed Kipling for an inclusive sense of Englishness.
Throughout their lives, Kipling and his wife Carrie maintained an active interest in Camp Mowglis, which is still in operation and continues the traditions that Kipling inspired. The campers are referred to as "the Pack," from the youngest "Cubs" to the oldest campers living in "Den. Kipling's links with the Scouting movements were also strong.
These connections still exist today, such as the continued popularity of " Kim's Game " in the Scouting movement. The movement is named after Mowgli 's adopted wolf family, and the adult helpers of Wolf Cub Packs adopt names taken from The Jungle Book , especially the adult leader who is called Akela after the leader of the Seeonee wolf pack.
Rudyard Kipling - Wikipedia
After the death of Kipling's wife in , his house, " Bateman's " in Burwash , East Sussex, South East England, where he had lived from until , was bequeathed to the National Trust and is now a public museum dedicated to the author. Elsie Bambridge , his only child who lived to maturity, died childless in , and also bequeathed her copyrights to the National Trust, which in turn donated them to the University of Sussex to ensure better public access. Novelist and poet Sir Kingsley Amis wrote a poem, 'Kipling at Bateman's', after visiting Kipling's Burwash home Amis' father had lived in Burwash briefly in the s as part of a BBC television series on writers and their houses.
In modern-day India, whence he drew much of his material, Kipling's reputation remains controversial, especially amongst modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics. Rudyard Kipling was a prominent supporter of Colonel Reginald Dyer , who was responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in the province of Punjab. Kipling called Dyer "the man who saved India" and also initiated collections for the latter's homecoming prize.
Other contemporary Indian intellectuals such as Ashis Nandy have taken a more nuanced view of his work. Jawaharlal Nehru , the first Prime Minister of independent India, often described Kipling's novel Kim as one of his favourite books. G V Desani , an Indian writer of fiction, had a more negative opinion of Kipling.
He alludes to Kipling in his novel, All About H. Therein, this self-appointed whiteman's burden-bearing sherpa feller's stated how, in the Orient, blokes hit the road and think nothing of walking a thousand miles in search of something. Indian writer Khushwant Singh wrote in that he considers Kipling's " If— " "the essence of the message of The Gita in English", [] referring to the Bhagavad Gita , an ancient Indian scripture.
Narayan said, "Kipling, the supposed expert writer on India, showed a better understanding of the mind of the animals in the jungle than of the men in an Indian home or the marketplace. In November , it was announced that Kipling's birth home in the campus of the J J School of Art in Mumbai would be turned into a museum celebrating the author and his works. Kipling's bibliography includes fiction including novels and short stories , non-fiction, and poetry.
Several of his works were collaborations. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Kipling disambiguation. Caroline Starr Balestier m. A left-facing swastika in , a symbol of good luck. Poetry portal Biography portal. Notes on the text by John McGivering. He also noted that the three writers all "had semi-fanatic ideas about religion, or about patriotism. Archived from the original on 25 September Retrieved 30 September Archived from the original on 18 September The Literary Dictionary Company. His Life and Work. A Circle of Sisters: Norton and Company, New York.
Notes edited by John Radcliffe. Retrieved 2 October Retrieved 7 August College of Architecture 30 September College of Architecture, Mumbai. Archived from the original on 28 July Archived from the original on 14 November Retrieved 6 October Archived from the original on 23 February Retrieved 6 September Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed. Subscription or UK public library membership required. Retrieved 6 March Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. Library of Congress USA. Letters of Rudyard Kipling, volume 1.
Unusual Visits to Unlikely Places". Kipling and the Idea of Sacrifice. The New York Times. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Carroll and Graf Publishers Inc. Letters of Travel — Letters of Rudyard Kipling, volume 2. The White Man's Burden. A Companion to Victorian Poetry. Jacobean house, home of Rudyard Kipling". Archived from the original on 17 January Retrieved 23 June Archived from the original on 25 April Rudyard Kipling and Tibetan Buddhist Traditions".
Rudyard Kipling and modern Science Fiction". Retrieved on 4 May The Decisive Election that Shaped the Country. Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. The Masonic History Co. War Literature and the Arts. Archived from the original PDF on 2 April Retrieved 15 August The son who haunted Kipling". Retrieved 3 May It was only his father's intervention that allowed John Kipling to serve on the Western Front - and the poet never got over his death.
War Memorials Archive Blog. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Irish Guards in the Great War.
- Apache Moon (The Pecos Kid Book 3).
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- Surviving Frank (F as in Frank Book 1);
- W. B. Yeats;
- Grave Truths.
Retrieved 23 July How "Kim" saved the life of a French soldier: LOC Ref [1]. Retrieved 2 January Retrieved 10 September Retrieved 24 November Retrieved 7 May Retrieved 12 October Retrieved 18 July Exploring the Literary Homes of England". Retrieved 20 March Retrieved 26 February Eliot's essay occupies 31 pages. Retrieved 4 December The Poetry Society Spring Archived from the original on 23 May Retrieved 11 February Retrieved 15 July Is Afghanistan turning into another Vietnam?
Retrieved 26 November The Library — Scouting history — Me Too! Archived from the original on 25 November The Life of Kingsley Amis. Retrieved 9 August Rudyard Kipling at Wikipedia's sister projects. Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Eliot William Faulkner Bertrand Russell. Nobel Laureates in English Literature. The family returned to London in Yeats later sought to mythologize the collective, calling it the "Tragic Generation" in his autobiography, [23] and published two anthologies of the Rhymers' work, the first one in and the second one in He collaborated with Edwin Ellis on the first complete edition of William Blake's works, in the process rediscovering a forgotten poem, "Vala, or, the Four Zoas".
Yeats had a life-long interest in mysticism, spiritualism , occultism and astrology. He read extensively on the subjects throughout his life, became a member of the paranormal research organisation " The Ghost Club " in and was especially influenced by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. Some critics disparaged this aspect of Yeats's work.
His first significant poem was "The Island of Statues", a fantasy work that took Edmund Spenser and Shelley for its poetic models. The piece was serialized in the Dublin University Review. Yeats wished to include it in his first collection, but it was deemed too long, and in fact was never republished in his lifetime. Quinx Books published the poem in complete form for the first time in His first solo publication was the pamphlet Mosada: A Dramatic Poem , which comprised a print run of copies paid for by his father.
This was followed by the collection The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems , which arranged a series of verse that dated as far back as the mids.
John Clare
The long title poem contains, in the words of his biographer R. Foster , "obscure Gaelic names, striking repetitions [and] an unremitting rhythm subtly varied as the poem proceeded through its three sections"; [29]. We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three, Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair, On a morning misty and mild and fair. The mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees, And in the blossoms hung the bees. We rode in sadness above Lough Lean, For our best were dead on Gavra's green.
Oisin introduces what was to become one of his most important themes: Following the work, Yeats never again attempted another long poem. His other early poems, which are meditations on the themes of love or mystical and esoteric subjects, include Poems , The Secret Rose , and The Wind Among the Reeds The covers of these volumes were illustrated by Yeats's friend Althea Gyles. During , Yeats was involved in the formation of the Dublin Hermetic Order.
The society held its first meeting on 16 June, with Yeats acting as its chairman. The same year, the Dublin Theosophical lodge was opened in conjunction with Brahmin Mohini Chatterjee , who travelled from the Theosophical Society in London to lecture. He later became heavily involved with the Theosophy and with hermeticism , particularly with the eclectic Rosicrucianism of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Although he reserved a distaste for abstract and dogmatic religions founded around personality cults, he was attracted to the type of people he met at the Golden Dawn.
After the Golden Dawn ceased and splintered into various offshoots, Yeats remained with the Stella Matutina until Yeats began an obsessive infatuation, and she had a significant and lasting effect on his poetry and his life thereafter. In he visited Gonne in Ireland and proposed marriage, but was rejected. He later admitted that from that point "the troubling of my life began".
She refused each proposal, and in , to his dismay, married the Irish nationalist Major John MacBride. Yeats derided MacBride in letters and in poetry. He worried his muse would come under the influence of the priests and do their bidding. Gonne's marriage to MacBride was a disaster. This pleased Yeats, as Gonne began to visit him in London. Despite the use of intermediaries, a divorce case ensued in Paris in Gonne made a series of allegations against her husband with Yeats as her main 'second', though he did not attend court or travel to France.
A divorce was not granted, for the only accusation that held up in court was that MacBride had been drunk once during the marriage. A separation was granted, with Gonne having custody of the baby and MacBride having visiting rights. Yeats's friendship with Gonne ended, yet, in Paris in , they finally consummated their relationship. Yeats was less sentimental and later remarked that "the tragedy of sexual intercourse is the perpetual virginity of the soul. My arms are like the twisted thorn And yet there beauty lay; The first of all the tribe lay there And did such pleasure take; She who had brought great Hector down And put all Troy to wreck.
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Gregory encouraged Yeats's nationalism, and convinced him to continue focusing on writing drama. Although he was influenced by French Symbolism , Yeats concentrated on an identifiably Irish content and this inclination was reinforced by his involvement with a new generation of younger and emerging Irish authors. Together with Lady Gregory, Martyn, and other writers including J. One of the most significant of these was Douglas Hyde , later the first President of Ireland, whose Love Songs of Connacht was widely admired.
The collective survived for about two years but was not successful. Yeats remained involved with the Abbey until his death, both as a member of the board and a prolific playwright. In , he helped set up the Dun Emer Press to publish work by writers associated with the Revival. This became the Cuala Press in , and inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, sought to "find work for Irish hands in the making of beautiful things. Yeats met the American poet Ezra Pound in Pound had travelled to London at least partly to meet the older man, whom he considered "the only poet worthy of serious study.
The relationship got off to a rocky start when Pound arranged for the publication in the magazine Poetry of some of Yeats's verse with Pound's own unauthorised alterations. These changes reflected Pound's distaste for Victorian prosody. A more indirect influence was the scholarship on Japanese Noh plays that Pound had obtained from Ernest Fenollosa 's widow, which provided Yeats with a model for the aristocratic drama he intended to write. The first of his plays modelled on Noh was At the Hawk's Well , the first draft of which he dictated to Pound in January The emergence of a nationalist revolutionary movement from the ranks of the mostly Roman Catholic lower-middle and working class made Yeats reassess some of his attitudes.
He would often visit and stay there as it was a central meeting place for people who supported the resurgence of Irish literature and cultural traditions. His poem, " The Wild Swans at Coole " was written there, between and He wrote prefaces for two books of Irish mythological tales, compiled by Augusta, Lady Gregory: Cuchulain of Muirthemne , and Gods and Fighting Men In the preface of the later he wrote: Yeats was an Irish Nationalist , who sought a kind of traditional lifestyle articulated through poems such as 'The Fisherman'.
However, as his life progressed, he sheltered much of his revolutionary spirit and distanced himself from the intense political landscape until , when he was appointed Senator for the Irish Free State. In the earlier part of his life, Yeats was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. In the s Yeats was fascinated with the authoritarian, anti-democratic, nationalist movements of Europe, and he composed several marching songs for the far right Blueshirts , although they were never used. He was a fierce opponent of individualism and political liberalism, and saw the fascist movements as a triumph of public order and the needs of the national collective over petty individualism.
On the other hand, he was also an elitist who abhorred the idea of mob-rule, and saw democracy as a threat to good governance and public order. By , Yeats was 51 years old and determined to marry and produce an heir. His rival John MacBride had been executed for his role in the Easter Rising , so Yeats hoped that his widow might remarry.
Foster has observed that Yeats's last offer was motivated more by a sense of duty than by a genuine desire to marry her. Yeats proposed in an indifferent manner, with conditions attached, and he both expected and hoped she would turn him down. According to Foster "when he duly asked Maud to marry him, and was duly refused, his thoughts shifted with surprising speed to her daughter.
She had lived a sad life to this point; conceived as an attempt to reincarnate her short-lived brother, for the first few years of her life she was presented as her mother's adopted niece. When Maud told her that she was going to marry, Iseult cried and told her mother that she hated MacBride. At fifteen, she proposed to Yeats. In , he proposed to Iseult, but was rejected. Despite warnings from her friends—"George He must be dead"—Hyde-Lees accepted, and the two were married on 20 October.
The couple went on to have two children, Anne and Michael. Although in later years he had romantic relationships with other women, Georgie herself wrote to her husband "When you are dead, people will talk about your love affairs, but I shall say nothing, for I will remember how proud you were. During the first years of marriage, they experimented with automatic writing ; she contacted a variety of spirits and guides they called "Instructors" while in a trance. The spirits communicated a complex and esoteric system of philosophy and history, which the couple developed into an exposition using geometrical shapes: In , he wrote to his publisher T.
In December , Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature , "for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation". His reply to many of the letters of congratulations sent to him contained the words: