Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is perhaps the most controversial major English
poetof the last two centuries, not least because of his apparent enthusiasm
for the empire. A child of British India, he first became famous for tales
of imperial life, notably Kim, the Jungle Book and Barrack Room Ballads.
Kipling wrote verse in every classical form from the epigram to the ode,
but his most distinctive gift was for the ballads and narrative poems in
which he draws vivid characters in universal situations and articulates
profound truths in plain language. Yet he was also a subtle and deeply
affecting anatomist of the human heart, with a feeling for the natural
world which rivals his younger contemporary, D. H. Lawrence. Shattered by
World War I in which he lost his only son, his work darkens and deepens in
later years, but never loses its extraordinary vitality.