According
to Kipling in his autobiography, Something of Myself (1937), the origins of
‘If—’ lie in the failed Jameson raid of 1895-6, when the British colonial
statesman Leander Starr Jameson led a raid against the South African (Boer)
Republic over the New Year weekend. Jameson intended to rouse the British
expatriates living in the Transvaal to rise up against the Boer government, but
his fellow Brits showed no inclination to revolt. Instead, Jameson’s bungled
military action helped to create the climate that would lead to the Second Boer
War a few years later.
Kipling
knew Jameson, and recorded in Something of Myself: ‘Among the verses in Rewards
was one set called “If” … They were drawn from Jameson’s character, and
contained counsels of perfection most easy to give.’ However, it would be easy
to overstate the role that the Jameson raid had on ‘If—’, and it would appear
that Kipling’s (posthumously published) memoir is the first time that this link
is mentioned. The poem’s final words, ‘you’ll be a man, my son’, suggest that
the poem is addressed to Kipling’s actual son, and ‘If—’ should first and
foremost be interpreted as a poem addressed to a younger man, listing the
necessary characteristics a man should acquire or cultivate in order to be a
paragon of manly virtue.
And
what are those virtues? Stoicism looms large in Kipling’s poem – that is, the
acknowledgment that, whilst you cannot always prevent bad things from happening
to you, you can deal with them in a good way. This is summed up well in the
referencing to meeting with triumph and disaster and ‘treat[ing] those two
impostors just the same’ – in other words, be magnanimous in victory and
success (don’t gloat or crow about it) and be dignified and noble in defeat or
times of trouble (don’t moan or throw your toys out of the pram). A phrase that
is often used in discussion or analysis of ‘If—’ is ‘stiff upper lip’, that
shorthand for the typically English quality of reserve and stoicism in the face
of disaster.
‘If—’
is a classic example of anaphora in English poetry: that is, the repetition of
the same word or words at the beginning of successive clauses – in this case,
of course, ‘If’. But the syntactical balance in the poem is also noteworthy:
one idea is introduced in the ‘if’ clause, and then a further clause turns that
idea or trope on its head. For instance, consider these two lines from the
second stanza, where dreams and thoughts/thinking are discussed:
If
you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If
you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
This
structure is found throughout ‘If—’, and gives the poem an almost chant-like
quality. (The accusation may be made that there is something too regular about
such a form, and this may have been one reason why T. S. Eliot, otherwise a fan
of Kipling’s poetry, called ‘If—’ good verse but not good poetry.) In short,
the power of ‘If—’ lies not solely in its ‘ifs …’ but its ‘ifs … but withouts
…’. This rhythmical structure to Kipling’s poem reinforces the stoical attitude
to living which it advocates: it’s okay to dream, to think big, but don’t
expect your dreams always to come true, and be realistic in your goals. It’s
like a self-help book in verse, offering practical common-sense advice.
This
iconic poem is expressed plainly enough so that close textual analysis is by no
means necessary to understand it – but the syntactical and rhetorical rhythms
and patterns Kipling sets up are worthy of commentary. But the poem appeals
even to those not in the business of literary criticism or analysis. It’s
almost a code to live by, a mantra – or, as one poet suggested, a distillation
of the Bhagavad Gita into English.