ABSTRACT
Kipling's idea of Empire was of a 'community of men of identical race and identical aims, united in comradeship, comprehension and sympathy'. The Empire provided the framework wherein this work could be performed, building the 'bulkhead 'twixt despair and the edge of nothing'. It is this which accounts for the almost Calvinistic fervour with which Kipling extols the virtues of hard work, which become because of their milieu the virtues of the true Imperialist. English literature has always been steeped in the lore and traditions of the sea. As Charles Carrington comments: 'Search English literature and we will find no treatment of the English soldier' on any adequate scale between Shakespeare and Kipling'. Kipling made his contribution to public school literature with Stalky and Co., based on reminiscences of his own school days. The true 'Novel of Empire' only began to appear in the last decades of the nineteenth century and to take shape under the influence of Kipling.
