The Nation’s Favourite Poems
This is an audio book. I got it to listen to in the car. I can hardly read poetry while driving.
“The Nation’s Favourite Poems” are not necessarily the intellectuals’ favourite poems. For example, I have heard criticisms of the nation’s favourite poem, “If” by Rudyard Kipling that it is “of its time” and dated in its outlook.
Of course it is. It was written in 1895 and Kipling was a supporter of the British Empire.
The “manly virtues” in the poem are not conventional, they could have equally applied to a daughter.
It is a poem for a son, written by a father and indeed my father used to recite it to me. It was the best part of my day.
There are parts of this poem which have been relevant throughout my life and probably yours too.
I take one example.
“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken,
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.”
If you have never felt this in your lifetime, you have been exceptionally lucky!
People do distort what you say. Sometimes this is quite unintentional but some are indeed knaves and they are making a trap. Those who walk into the trap could be called fools if you are feeling uncharitable.
The poem is all one long sentence. The ending is hardly a surprise but it does round off all of the subordinate clauses quite nicely.
“Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.
And, which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.”
Perhaps the intellectuals need to learn from the hoi polloi!
