ABSTRACT
Rudyard Kipling invented the phrase ‘the white man's burden’, using it to describe both the strain and the duties of Empire. Born in India and sent over to England for seven years to be educated (to his great unhappiness), Kipling was a prolific poet, short story and novel writer. Many of these works had aspects of the Empire at their heart. In his own time he was seen as being cynical about the Empire and its consequences. Until recently he has tended to be seen as jingoistic and prone to a simplistic sentimentality about colonialism, and the military paraphernalia that feeds Empire. He is now often revalued, and his work seen for the complex entity that it is — a part of Empire, an objective and often critical observer of it but also moved by it. A radical view is that Kipling does not comment on Empire, any more than many of the war poets comment on the First World War. It is simply too large and overwhelming an experience, the result of which is that Kipling observes the experience of Empire through its victims and its leaders, its servants and its masters. One might ask if Kipling's work is about Empire, or if it simply uses Empire to discuss the lasting features of human life.
