Description
Book SynopsisChallenging received opinion and breaking new ground in Kipling scholarship, these essays on Kipling’s attitudes to the First World War, to the culture of Edwardian England, to homosexuality and to Jewishness, bring historical, literary critical and postcolonial approaches to this perennially controversial writer.
The Introduction situates the book in the context of Kipling’s changing reputation and of recent Kipling scholarship. After the perspectives of Chesterton (1905), Orwell (1942) and Jarrell (1960), newer contributions address Kipling's approach to the Boer war, his involvement with World War One, his Englishness and the politics of literary quotation. Different aspects of Kipling’s relation to India are explored, including the ‘Mutiny’, Eastern religions, his Indian travel writings and his knowledge of ‘the vernacular’.
This collection, whose contributors include Hugh Brogan, Dan Jacobson, Daniel Karlin and Bryan Cheyette, is essential reading for academics and students of Kipling, Victorian and Edwardian English literature and cultural history.
Trade ReviewJan Montefiore's handsomely produced collection of essays tackles the subject [Kipling's views] straight on. -- .
Table of Contents1. Introduction - Jan Montefiore
2. Kipling - G K Chesterton
3. Rudyard Kipling - George Orwell
4. On preparing to read Kipling - Randall Jarrell
5. Kipling in South Africa - Dan Jacobson
6. The Great War and Rudyard Kipling - Hugh Brogan
7. A Kipling-conditioned world: Kipling among the War Poets - Harry Ricketts
8. Actions and reactions: Kipling's Indian Summer - Daniel Karlin
9. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Indian history - Lisa Lewis
10. The young Kipling's search for God - Charles Allen
11. Vagabondage in Rajasthan: Kipling's Indian travels in fact and fiction - Jan Montefiore
12. Kipling's vernacular: what he knew of it and what he made of it - Harish Trivedi
13. Quotations and boundaries: Stalky & co. - Kaori Nagai
14. Kipling, beastliness and soldatenliebe - Howard Booth
15. A race to leave alone: Kipling and the Jews - Bryan Cheyette
Select bibliography
Index
