"Recessional" by Rudyard Kipling (poetry)

[chirectomy]

Excellent recitation. This poem, more than any of his others, reflects Kipling's incredible talent with words and his controversial legacy as an apologist for the British empire. Orwell wrote an excellent piece on Kipling where he defends this particular work from "pansy left circles" for its warning against hubris and affirms Kipling's unique talent, while dismissing his personal legacy and political views. The trendy phrase in libertarian circles now is "peace through superior firepower."

[lodproductions90]

Genius!

[eclectorsdevices]

"Freedom at Midnight" (Collins and Lapierre) documents the British emancipation of India and the genius and perseverance of Lord Montbatten in saving millions from religious slaughter. After all, they could have just pulled out as we did in Viet Nam

[GMAILLOVE1]

whats an eeay way to memorize this?

[Cybrludite]

@GMAILLOVE1, The best way to memorize it is to learn it as a song. I recommend Leslie Fish's version.

[SpokenVerse]

@Cybrludite That might work for you. But note that he sings "awesome" instead of "awful" and "a humble" instead of "an humble."

[hanson666999]

Even though those days are past there is still something about this poem that speaks to us in the present, that is the mark of a good poet. Kipling is one of the most insightful poets i have ever read. May he reside in memory for all history. P.S. This is read very nicely, it does his words justice so thankyou.

[donpearson61]

I recommend "Epitaphs of the War" as a reflection on the results of empire building and jingoism.

Don

[CofCGuy]

Brilliant poem.

[eclectorsdevices]

A great rendition of what Kipling himself felt to be his greatest poem. Certainly a proponent of the Empire, he had the foresight to see the liberal forces at work against her and her ultimate demise.

[jesusfreak1124]

This is the poem that I'm using for my poetry presentation! :-)

[donpearson61]

Thank you. I love Kipling. Although he is unfashionable in post-Empire Britain, I think there is great depth to some of his poetry.

[Halo4Lyf]

It's always been my hope that a revival of Kipling would revive the old spirit of Britain, the one that built the Empire.

[UserOfCommonSense]

@Halo4Lyf i don't think we really want to see a return to the spirit that brought about the murderous invasions and mass slavery synonymous with the british empire. im sure there were good points, but the bad points made nazism look like a tea party.

[Halo4Lyf]

@UserOfCommonSense Yes, because introducing things like roads, functional courts and police, in some cases the very concept of the rule of law, Western political and economic theory and practices, some semblance of equality between the sexes, and the scientific method was sooooo evil.

Colonialism was the best damn thing that ever happened to the Third World. Most of Africa would still be stuck in the bronze or neolithic ages without it.

[jonchapple]

@UserOfCommonSense The British Empire was the first modern Western nation-state to abolish slavery, and actively—at great individual cost and inconvenience to itself—patrolled the coast of west Africa for some sixty years impounding American, Spanish and French slave-ships. You can't judge a 19th-century empire by 21st-century standards. Compared to the alternatives, the British didn't do too badly at all.

[eclectorsdevices]

@Halo4Lyf You could not have expressed my sentiments better. The world is a better place for having had the British Empire. One might look at India, a land where 300 maharajahs controlled 99% of the land and wee constantly warring until the British divided it up like a jigsaw puzzle and kept reasonable peace for 300 years.

[Halo4Lyf]

@eclectorsdevices Ayup. Got it in one. Do people honestly think that India would be the economic powerhouse it is today if it hadn't been for British Colonialism? I mean, seriously, the 21st Century could very well be an Indian Century (at least the second half of it, because I refuse to cede this half of it to those bastards in the CCP)! And they'd deserve it, too.

[Tomyris]

@UserOfCommonSense Perhaps he's referring to the nineteenth-century spirit that was obsessed with abolishing the slave trade throughout the world? You seem to be stuck in the eighteenth-century there. At any rate, it's frankly offensive to say that the British Empire made Nazism look like a tea party if you knew anything about either.

[UserOfCommonSense]

@Tomyris you're trying to defend the indefensible with an inadequate knowledge of history, and so it would be a waste of anyone's time to take you seriously.

[Tomyris]

@UserOfCommonSense And where exactly did you study history then?

[UserOfCommonSense]

@Tomyris Any particular reason why you would be interested in that?

[Tomyris]

@UserOfCommonSense It's only that you claim I have 'an inadequate knowledge of history' - actually, I'm studying for a postgraduate degree in Imperial History at Oxford University (having undertaken a BA there too), so I'm just interested as to your qualifications on the matter too!