JFF - Rudyard Kipling or Other Poets

I actually really love Kipling. I think his works are very misunderstood. I read a criticism book one time, and i agreed with what the writer had to say. They think Kipling was referring to white people being more "advanced." During that time there were only 2-3 developed countries, that were not predominantly white. White people were more advanced in socioeconomic ways. That does not mean a more advanced race. (Many people referred to black people being closer to apes at the time. I mean he's not saying white people were more advanced in that way.) He was not speaking of them being more advanced, in the way supremacists and many evolutionists at the time did. Beyond that, think of the time. Racism was completely the norm. There was no civil right movement. This was life. If he WAS racist (I do not believe he was,) it was not a vile thing to be like today. It just was. I believe he spoke of character constantly, not color...personally.

You know what? I feel like our children NEED to read literary works that include racism and injustices. Just like they need to know about the holocaust, the Apartheid, women's suffrage, our treatment of native Americans...etc. One of the most important things (I think) we can do educationally, is teaching our children the mistakes and perversions of justices we should never make again. Could he be racist? Given the time, sure! I'd still let my son read it!!

ETA: We are going to be homeschooling.

I really like Kipling and I totally agree with what Bug posted. There is a movement in schools now to eradicate anything that has any hint of being racist so no one is offended. I believe strongly in the maxim that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so imagine what could happen if we never learn it at all?

During Kipling's time, there was an element of "racism" due to ignorance - people were just starting to really get out, colonization was active and there was great fear of the unknown, including other people. This type of racism is such that can be "cured" from knowledge - travel, technology, familiarity / normalization, etc. But there is an element of racism that comes also from the darker side of our human nature. This is racism that has no regard for others, is rooted in selfishness, greed and ambition. I think it would be brilliant of literary teachers to juxtapose works from each and discuss the difference, as the latter will never fully be "cured", despite our expanding knowledge base.

This is one of the few countries in the world where we have such sensitivity to issues of race to the point where we don't even always know how to talk to each other for fear of offending. To really look at the great writers and poets, one has to set this aside and consider the whole context - rather than one isolated work. We live in a day of "pop" journalism & psychology, so people are not accustomed to taking this kind of time to really tear this stuff apart, compare/ contrast and THINK.

On a similar vein, I just heard on NPR about a trend being called "presentism" in literature. There seems to be very little interest or engagement with the classics - even at the college level. One college professor was talking about proposing that their ENGLISH MAJORS not have to read anything written before 1923. People just assume that old / classic = outmoded and irrelevant. This scares me, too! C.S. Lewis remarked that we would do well to consider the writings of classic authors considering that human nature (at the most basic level) does not change. We have the advantage of learning from other's mistakes and making progress, rather than getting caught up in the same things.

I like Rudyard as well.

I'm always a bit surprised by people who are horrified about the learning of certain things.
Learning about something and knowing about it are not the same as being "instructed in the ways" of it or accepting it as your own personal philosophy.

I think children can learn more from being exposed to things that are inappropriate than only exposing them to things that we think lovely and beautiful and politically correct. I also think it does a disservice just to assume that something is one way or the other unless you have delved into it a bit.

I loved reading with my kids and discussing the meanings of the imagery, what they thought the author was trying to say, etc. It gets them thinking and opens dialogue.

Sadly, literature isn't taught as much in school as much as it was when I was growing up. When my son was a freshman, they did a project about Sheakespeare which piggy-backed on the historical aspect of how people spoke and dressed at the time. I hate to say I don't think my son got a great deal out of it.

I can promise he wasn't introduced to Rudyard, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, ......at school.

School is great, but it's not the only place our kids learn.

Just my opinion.
Best wishes.

I was never taught Kipling in school one way or the other (probably due to what you already stated). I read it at home out of our library and always loved it. Not sure if I picked up on his satire as a child but definitely enjoyed much of his work. I find looking back that whatI read in school was very vland compared to the wonderful things I got to read at home. And thank goodness I had parents who had so many books in the home! Then again I do know I read things at school that kids don't get to read now. I hear some schools won't teach the Scarlett Letter, Frankenstein or Lord of the Flies. I'm not sure the reasons why? Some of the only books I remember enjoying in school! And I love Blake too but never read him until college. Our schools need to go back to school.

I was not taught that his poems were racist. I had a great English teacher who required us to really look at the meanings in poems and to not just take them at face value. It is obvious to me what that poem is about, but not to others, it seems. It is still very relevant today. My very favorite Kipling poem is If. Love that poem.

I also like Kipling. Some of my favorites are The Female of the Species (is More Deadly Than the Male), The Gods of the Copybook Headings, and If. He has a wonderful way of communicating. I honestly don't remember if Kipling was introduced to us in school. It's been a long time... LOL We homeschool, so my children have been introduced to Kipling.

I teach that poem when I teach our unit on imperialism. Kipling was a product of his times- a British man who believed in his country's superiority and in its "responsibility" to civilize the savages. I think if you talked to any modern day Indian, Egyptian, Kenyan or any other person from a formally colonized British state, they would have a different point of view than yours.