If -
"If—" is a notable poem by
Rudyard Kipling. It was written in
1895; the poem was first published the Brother Square Toes chapter of
Rewards and Fairies, Kipling's
1910 collection of short stories and poems. Like
Invictus, it is a memorable evocation of
Victorian stoicism and the "stiff upper lip" that
popular culture has made into a traditional
British virtue. In a
1995 BBC opinion poll, it was voted the most popular poem of all time in the
United Kingdom. Kipling himself noted in his
autobiography that the poem had been "
anthologised to weariness". "If—" holds the world record for the poem to be reprinted in more anthologies than any other.
"If—", according to one source[1], was inspired by Dr Leander Starr Jameson. In 1895, Jameson led a disastrous raid by British forces against the Boers in South Africa. This defeat increased the tensions that ultimately led to the Boer War. The British press, however, portrayed Jameson as a hero in the middle of the disaster, and the actual defeat as a British victory.
External links