Understanding the Poem "If" by the Poet Rudyard Kipling

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Summary The poem is a paean to British stoicism and masculine rectitude; almost every line in each stanza begins with "If". It is subtitled "'Brother Square-Toes' – Rewards and Fairies". The poem's speaker says that if you can keep your head while those around you lose theirs; if you can trust yourself when others doubt you; if you can be patient and not lose your temper; if you can handle being lied about but not lie yourself, and being hated but not hating yourself; if you do not look too good or talk too wise: If you can dream but not let those dreams cloud your reason; if you can think but still take action; if you can deal with both triumph and disaster; if you can handle it when others twist your truths into lies, or take the things you devoted your life to and turn them from broken into alive again: If you can take all of your winnings and bet them in one fell swoop and lose them all and then keep it a secret; if you can use your heart and muscles and nerves to hold on even when there is only Will left: If you can remain virtuous among people and talk with Kings without becoming pretentious; if you can handle foes and friends with ease; if you see that men count on you but not too much; if you can fill every minute with meaning: Then you have all the Earth and everything upon it, and, as the speaker exultantly ends, "you'll be a Man, my son!" Analysis This is, without a doubt, Kipling's most beloved poem, and, along with "The White Man's Burden", his most famous. Although T.S. Eliot would deem it only "great verse" and others "jingoistic nonsense," it is consistently ranked among the highest, if not the highest itself, of Britons' favorite poems. It was first published in the "Brother Square-Toes" chapter of Rewards and Fairies, a 1910 collection of verse and short stories. While the poem is addressed to Kipling's son John, it was inspired by a great

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