At the time of the publication of this famous and much-loved poem, Kipling’s son John was only 12. A celebrated British poet, Rudyard Kipling was the world’s youngest nobel laureate and he absolutely adored his son.
By parts parental advice about self-discipline, this poem reverberates with the hopes and abiding love the talented writer had for his son (much to his embarrassment). This poem has since become a canon in British literature as an evocation of Victorian-era stoicism—the virtue of the "stiff upper lip" self-discipline valued by then society.
Tragaically, his young son, John, lost his life in the line of duty during the First World War in September 1915. Kipling embarked on a desperate search in the hopes that he had merely been kidnapped since his son’s remains were never found, but to no avail.
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