/lit/ - Literature

It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.

They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.

Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not suddently bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper–
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:–
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

>>6093864
I've memorized "If", good stuff. I enjoy how rapid and Pindaresque Kipling is.

>>6093876
>rapid

Excellent description of him.

>>6093869
This stirs my blood and sets my jaw in ways my enemies fear.

Racist piece of shit.

>>6093905
God and country lad.

>>6093906
Rude.

Far called our navies melt away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire,
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday,
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget...

;_;

>>6093941
R-rule Britannia :'(

>>6093864
Imperialist and racist, move along, now.

>Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
>And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools

I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND
I'M NOT YOUR LOVER
I'M NOT YOUR FAMILY

YEAH

>>6093864
Jingo imperial fuck. I hate Kipling.

not bad for what he was trying to do with his poems. Not to mention technically skilled; some of his shit is very well written.

>durr racist
wow you mean like 95% of every writer ever before the year 1940?

I don't know about you guys but I do really like his short stories. Borges late writing was trying to emulate Kipling use of language in his own late short stories. I don't remember names but there was one about a Heresy related to the eye of Allah or something which I did enjoy. His early writings about India are also very good and laconic which is in my opinion their best trait.

>>6094408
>>6094474

Could you please elaborate on your accusations comrades?

>>6094878
Thanks for sharing. Have you read the Jungle Book?

>>6093864
I am suspicious of the timing of this post, OP.

Mediocre, racist, yeah. But he's not unpopular for no reason. Lots of great storytelling. I loved Kim in college and did a lot with it in worthless India studies classes.

Read Kim, read Jungle Book, if only for period-piece value. Otherwise, not much but surface level philosophy and flat, dumb characters.

George Orwell has a great essay where he classifies Kipling as one if the best of the "good bad poets," which I absolutely agree with. I love Kim and The Jungle Book and some of his short stories- "Ricki Ticki Tavi," "They," and "The Man Who Would Be King" especially. Stalky and Co is definitely underrates. Puck of Pook's Hill was too maudlin for me though.

>>6094932
>George Orwell has a great essay where he classifies Kipling as one if the best of the "good bad poets,"

Will have to check that out, thanks.

>>6093864
whites are a dying race.

i really liked the jungle books when i was a kid. mowgli got the bad ending but i predict that he would've left the girl eventually and returned to the jungle.

>>6094941
>whites are a dying race.

What makes you say that?

>>6094944
birth rates

>>6094948
We'll always be around lad.

>>6094948
As soon as "pure" europeans go extinct #teamlightskin will take up the torch.

>>6094950
That picture.

>who are all these women?
>what's with all the flowers?
>unhand my steed, foul maiden of the night
>how did I get here?
>this saddle is crushing my balls
>this is the last time I am drinking mead with roland

>>6094965
#smh

>>6094966
I think it's a beautiful picture.

>>6094950
low melanin level is a recessive trait.

>>6094973
And?

>>6094970
shit taste
Aristotle was dead before Dante was even born.

>>6094975
Rome, Spain, and England all had their time in the sun. The wheel turns, empires fall.

>>6095010
Well said.

>>6095006
You're very opinionated.

>>6095028
who's the guy in the blue suit supposed to be?

>>6095052
You.

>>6095064
I think he's supposed to be Zachary Quinto

>>6095091
Like I said, you're very opinionated.

>>6095028
moral aesthetes have no shame.
This shit is grade A freedom chow, but anything non-figurative is a no-no.
Admittedly McNaughton does get points for sliding in Walter Benjamin, that one's clever.

I adore Kipling. In The Neolithic Age is my favorite of his poetry.

>>6095112
You should be a professional critic.

>>6095120
Humiliating christfags and other garbage is strictly pro bono.

>>6095136
I don't feel humiliated by you and I like hearing your opinions.

Pic related is a superior poet:

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one dischage from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

>>6094922
>he watched big brother

>>6096789
Wrong pic

>>6093906
>>6094408
>>6094923
>Kipling
>racist

Confirmed for never having actually read him.

>>6095155
I know that your own personal feelings are what guarantee your own "lived" experience of salvation, but anyone is capable of realizing that your personal factor amounts to "God exists because I said so". It can realize itself through the magick force of the personality which he has endowed me, the intelligibility of languages, etc. It's purely coincidental that it lines up with feudal agricultural social more which allow fulfillment of the deepest and most apelike male sexual desires and the complete hypocrisy of values owing to the primacy of purely personal taste.

>>6096837
Thank you for sharing your opinion.

>>6096852
You can't even provide a counterargument, you just dig yourself in deeper and prove my point. Anything any other human can say isn't true because you don't feel like it. The almighty Reason of the Cosmos renders all his followers dumbstruck when it comes time to be apologetic.

>>6095028

Is that JRR Tolkien above the suit guy's ear?

>>6096831
>white mans burden
>supports imperialism
>considered non white as inferior
>not racist
Honestly I get fed up of people trying to defend this man.

>>6096892
Who are you trying to convince?

>>6096899
He was a talented poet and author. Should an artist be silenced because of his ideas?

>>6096900
Anyone reading this thread. I'm making an example of you.

>>6096909
When his ideals are oppression and exploitation then yes, he should be silenced

>>6096915
The feeling is mutual.

>>6096916
What is it about his work specifically that leads you to believe that his ideals are "oppression and exploitation?"

>>6096928
The fact he promoted imperialism and even tried to get America colonise non white countries

>>6096916
Yo, professional advice: silencing people for holding the wrong ideals is oppression and exploitation in itself.

>>6096939
His work may have been exploited by politicians but you said his ideals were "oppression and exploitation." That is a weighty accusation to throw at someone, now I would like you to explain what it is about his poetry or novels that leads you believe that he kept such low ideals.

>>6096942
Maybe in your fucked up world view, but silencing people who are PROMOTING exploitation and oppression is helping to STOP exploitation and oppression. If everyone was writing pro exploitation literature then more people will think it's justifiable, it needs to be silenced so more people don't take Or are influenced by it.

I like one of the epitaphs he wrote for an unknown soldier after his son died in WW1

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

>>6096954

>>6096916
>we should oppress those who are in favour of oppression

Liberal logic, everyone.

>>6096947
The white mans burden was written to make America take part in imperialism, that's what.

>>6096954
>we hate oppression so we oppress oppressors

daily reminder that if a meme is good it will spread itself.

>>6096899
>HURR WHAT IS SATIRE?

>>6096960
I disagree, I think it was written as a celebration of Northern European identity.

>>6096958
I'm not a liberal or any kind of capitalist, I'm just trying to show you that people who thought imperialism was justifiable should be admired or respected in anyway.

>>6093864
The Man Who Would Be King is the best Novella I've read.

>>6096971
>I'm just trying to show you that people who thought imperialism was justifiable should be admired or respected in anyway.

Why not?

>people who think The White Man's Burden was intended to be serious

>>6096983
>thinking that matters

>>6096971
What exactly is wrong about imperialism?

If anything it should be celebrated.

>>6097044
You're a dunce.

>>6097052
hot arguments bro

>>6097055
Imperialism raped the world and everyone who lives here. Explain why it isn't wrong, fucktard.

>>6097063
The colonizing societies brought technological and cultural advancements.

>>6097055
Any argument against relies on either emotional appeals, or hilariously shallow notions of the equality of human life. for instance, >>6097063

>>6097063
>implying all countries once under colonisation wouldn't be even worse off if they had never been colonised

>>6097073
>cultural advancements
that's nice way to say brutal suppression and exploitation. What wealth that was yanked from colonial holdings ever returned?

>>6093864
>>6093906
>>6094408

I think that dismissing Kipling for views that were held by many at the time and condemned today is at best anachronistic and at worst moronic. Kipling was good at what he did, he never had any grand literary pretensions: he wrote "verses" - not poems - for simple, working class people: his stuff was performed in music halls for God's sake.

Despite this I think that he did write works of enduring literary worth, both poetry and prose: as >>6096975 says The Man Who Would Be King is a work the moral of which is enduringly true and can be applied to America's recent sojourn in the Middle East. Some of his poems - maybe not "If", which, being English, I have been somewhat overexposed to - like "Cold, Cold Iron" or "Mesopotamia, 1917" are also excellent. There is nothing I hate more than the dismissal of works because they espouse ideologies, or are even just written by people with differing ideologies, that the reviewer disagrees with.

>>6097090
What fucking wealth? The wealth the colonizing nations created, you mean? Seriously, the nations that were being colonized had thousands of years to create that wealth, yet never did.

>>6097090
>brutal suppression and exploitation.

I disagree with that estimation. We brought institutions of learning to dark parts of the world.

>What wealth that was yanked from colonial holdings ever returned?

To the victor go the spoils.

>>6097104
I don't think you fully grasp the concept we're arguing. I'm going to stop now. Have a good day.

>>6097118
>Can you not?
>Seriously?
>Wow just wow

>>6097090
>brutal suppression and exploitation

Stop appealing to emotion. Is there any reason why it's bad that doesn't require some appeal to empathy? Any at all? Why should societies be concerned with the well-being of those that do not advance help to advance it? Why exactly should one consider the such a life to have the same value as one that does?

>What wealth that was yanked from colonial holdings ever returned?

Why should it be? I don't really think wealth belongs to someone just because they happen to be sitting on it.

Well this thread quickly turned into /pol/ shitslinging.

>>6097148
>Why exactly should one consider the such a life to have the same value as one that does?
>>>/pol/

>>6093869
This is not Kipling. You can tell because it's shit.

>>6097166
It is Kipling, and you can tell because it's shit.

http://conservative-headlines.com/2014/12/the-wrath-of-the-awakened-saxon-2/

>Also check out Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “Take Up the White Man’s Burden.”

>>6097160
Can you actually provide an answer? You have yet make a coherent point.

I went on /pol/ once. they weren't particularly fond of me, and I can't say the feeling wan't mutual.

>>6097172
Because we're not living in 10000bc.

>>6097171

>>6097193
What is that exactly supposed to mean? I want to respond, but I don't want to miss your point.

>>6097100
This poem is quite impressive, especially as an historical document.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/248628

>>6097242
>http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/248628
We're not uncivilised with few resources anymore, we've moved forward.

>>6097100
fuck off racist11!!

>>6096918
It's not, you haven't been providing a single sentence counterargument. You feel like that makes you seem all serene and beatific, but it's clearly just a gloss for a lack for any substance or reasoning. In the absence of this you assume the primacy of your very own personal vagaries. You are making this increasingly evident.
I have no problem being an example. I'm not simply repeating things to the effect of "You're wrong because I feel like it".

>>6097166
>>6097171
How would you like it if we called your culture shit?

>>6093864
bump

I like his poetry and prose. I think people who focus on his jingoism, both for him and against him, are plebs to the utmost. I've seen all these poems posted on /pol/ with these exact images, OP, so I have a strong suspicion that you don't actually appreciate Kipling, you just appreciate jingoism.

>>6099767
You're mistaken.

literally reddit; the poem

>>6099785
Insightful analysis, we appreciate your contribution.

>>6099772
I don't think so, you only posted his jingoistic work.

>>6097595
That poem is shit. It has no interesting rhyming scheme, it has no flow, it says nothing interesting or deep, its use of repetition has no ties to any stanza making it feel awkward, and the repetition itself describes emotions rather than evoking them, a problem it shares with the rest of the poem. If you want to use it to measure your culture, either your culture is shit or you're using a poor metric.

It was written by a bad poet. Kipling was a good poet, ergo it was written by someone who is not Kipling, and whomever posted it as Kipling's clearly has no love of poetry or Kipling, but instead uses art as a means to an end and shares more in common with a Anita Sarkeesian than a Harold Bloom.

>>6100639
It's excusable, even if it's shit. Kipling wrote it in response to the Germans killing his son in WWI, the guy was going through a lot.

lmao'd at that buttmad commie. Here's a pic for ya bro ;^D

>>6100651
Imperialism is over though, except for corporate imperialism and China imperialism. England is like an old man and some people talk about how great youth was and how we should go back, but it's not going back.

As stupid as communism is, there is actually more of a chance of the UK going communist than becoming imperialist ever again.

>>6100665
Western imperialism is over, yes.

I'll kek heartily when shitskins reminesce about the good old days when whitey was in charge when they'll be working 16 hours a day in coal mines for China.

>>6100651

>le edgy reactionary
>thinks he personally made the modern world

How cute

>>6100674
That makes you petty and resentful. Very Christian of you, and I don't mean that ironically, since early Christians did like to fantasize about rich people going to hell.

>>6100681
When are you people going to get that Christianity can swerve any charges of hypocrisy through their moral aestheticism.

>>6100647
>Fart posts loudly

Saxons are German.

>>6100681
>That makes you petty and resentful.
Oh noes!

>Very Christian of you, and I don't mean that ironically, since early Christians did like to fantasize about rich people going to hell.
Thanks. Although I was born and raised an atheist I've been trying to connect with the christian roots of western civilization.

>>6100678
>all these assumptions
Why are you so angry?

>>6100694
>Although I was born and raised an atheist I've been trying to connect with the christian roots of western civilization.
They're mostly gone. The roots of Western civilization are Greco-Roman, and they've been coming back since the Enlightenment.

Christianity was an Eastern aesthetic.

>>6100701
I actually argue that Greco-Roman aesthetics and values first started to resurge with the Renaissance. Or, rather the Renaissance was more of a resurgence of Roman values, the Enlightenment a resurgence of Greek values.

>>6100701
>>6100713
It's true that the foundation of western civilization was greco-roman, but to ignore the contributions and influence of christianity on western civilization is absurd.

>>6100694

>accuses me of making assumptions
>makes assumption the next sentence

This is why no one takes /pol/acks serious

>>6100723
>notice how clearly irate somebody is and point it out to him
>buttblasted interlocutor invokes muh /pol/ boogeyman

>>6100717
Christianity definitely influenced the West, but it's largely Eastern values and aesthetics. Similarly, the West could go Islamic sometime in the near future, but I wouldn't call Islam the root of Western civilization no matter how Islamicized we became, since Islam is more Eastern values

>>6100726
>notice how clearly irate somebody is

You're a trained specialist on pinpointing how people feel based on anonymous posts?

Because that's almost as valid as /pol/'s revolutionary paradigm of "the jews did it"

>>6100739
>You're a trained specialist on pinpointing how people feel based on anonymous posts?
It's not really that hard for non-autistic people

>Because that's almost as valid as /pol/'s revolutionary paradigm of "the jews did it"
We're getting dangerously close to Godwin territory.

>>6100728
>Christianity definitely influenced the West, but it's largely Eastern values and aesthetics
How is it "Eastern values and aesthetics"? Care to elaborate?

>>6100749
1pm, did u just come home from school?
nigger fuck off

>>6097090
They are allowed to be alive. Imagine the Babylonians or the Aztec having world control. A bloodbath, that's what going to happen.

>>6100763
Nice retort, I see that /lit/ is indeed the highly intellectual board it claims to be.

You seem mad in this post too, or am I again "making assumptions" ?

>>6100701
>Christianity was an Eastern aesthetic.

The only eastern aesthetic is asiatic despotism. Read some Hegel you illiterate.

>>6100770

>>6100770
>I see that /lit/ is indeed the highly intellectual board it claims to be.
>don't worry guys, I'm totally not from /pol/. Ooga booga booga, Adorno will kill you in your sleep

>>>/pol/

There's the door, go jack off to your le glorious fourth reich with le glorious aryans over there

>>6100759
Well Christian aesthetics, up until the Renaissance, went for a cruder style of artwork that's reminiscent of Persian, Indian, and Jewish art. They also used opulent displays of wealth, which was something the Persians were renowned for and the Greeks mocked them as flamboyant and effeminate for doing.

The central hero of Christianity is Christ, the victim. Christianity lauded being a victim over a conqueror so much, that Christians actually wanted to become victims and sought to upset the Romans so they could be martyrs. Christianity identifies with the victim, as Jews did, rather than with warriors and athletes. In the Middle Ages, they did all sorts of silly shit sometimes like whip themselves because they thought that would appease God.

Also, Christian guilt, and the idea of being born in sin is very Jewish; the Jewish religion developed in capitivity, and Jews dreamed up some romantic past for themselves and thought they were in captivity because they upset God and they were hopelessly all guilty and could only beg his forgiveness--very antithetical to Greek and Roman outlook.

Catholics kneeled before God, this is a very Eastern practice. The Greeks remarked that the Persians kneeled before their Gods because the Persians were a race of slaves. Greeks held reverences for their Gods, but didn't see themselves as mere slaves of the Gods, they always prayed standing up, because they considered kneeling to be demeaning.

Greek, Rome, and the Germanic peoples all had strong democratic leanings. In fact in Athens, people were actually paid to vote in order to ensure the poor would turn up at assembly. Christian nations by contrast ended up with rather ridged, almost Indian caste systems, and undemocratic governance reminiscent of Persia.

>>6100777
>>6100783
I never claimed that I don't browse /pol/. I just find it hilarious how your only counter argument is "GET BACK TO POL STOP TRIGGERING MEEEE", akin to a monkey flinging his faeces at passerbys in a fit of rage.

>>6100811
>akin to a monkey flinging his faeces at passerbys in a fit of rage.

Hilarious how this is coming from a /pol/ack. Is there anything else you do on /pol/ than this and jacking off to le based uncle Adolf?

>>6100826
Nice adhom, le upboat to you my friend :^)

>>6100829

>le reddit strawman

Again, fuck off back to your faggy echochamber

>>>/pol/

There you go

>>6100838
>I can't bear to be confronted with opinions that differ from mine
>I am literally a whiny faggot

>>6100847
>>I can't bear to be confronted with opinions that differ from mine

That must be why you posted this >>6100651, with your response to differing opinions that everyone who doesn't subscribe to the infallible /pol/ dogma is 'le butthurt commie'

>>I am literally a whiny faggot

And yet you keep responding

>>6100858
Lolwut? I wasn't responding to anyone in my first post, what are you blabbering on about?