Student Question
What three things come to mind when reading the poem title "If—"?
Quick answer:
When readers first see the title of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If—," they might be surprised at the poet's use of this single word that often prompts a question. Readers might also reflect on how they use the word "if" in daily life and then, recalling what they know about Kipling, wonder what kind of "ifs" he might be presenting.
Before we read a poem like Rudyard Kipling's "If–," it's good idea to pause for a few moments and think about the title. What comes to mind with a glance at this title will be different for each person, but we can brainstorm a few possibilities.
First, we might notice that the title is only a single word. This is not especially unusual, but the word the poet chooses certainly is. Think about what would happen if someone came up to you, intending to start a conversation, and said only the word "If..." You would probably respond with something like "If what?" or "Yes?" That's what we want to say to Kipling, too.
Of course, Kipling has titled his poem this way for a reason. He wants to get us thinking about how we use that word little "if." Reflect for a moment on how many times you've said...
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"if" today. Perhaps you don't remember, because you haven't been paying attention, or perhaps you recall that you've used the word primarily when you've been speculating about something. You might have even said, "If I had a million dollars..." or "If I were you..."
Now we're probably curious about what Kipling might be speculating about in his poem and wondering what kinds of "if" statements he is going to make. We might remember what we know about Kipling (perhaps associating him with animal stories usually set in India) and speculate that he might be writing about what it would be like if a person were in a particular situation in the Indian wilderness (if you meet a cobra...).
The next thing to do, of course, is read the poem and discover for yourself what kinds of "if" statements Kipling actually presents.
What three things come to mind when you read the title "If—"?
The title of Rudyard Kipling's most famous poem, though short, is full of meaning. First and foremost, it indicates, right at the outset, that the following poem will deal with possible scenarios of one kind or another.
In technical terms, the word “if” is a conjunction, which when introducing a conditional clause indicates the potential consequences of a particular course of action. So, to take a simple example, we could have the sentence “If you eat too much junk food, then you'll put on weight.”
In the case of Kipling's poem, the speaker presents the young man to whom he's addressing his remarks with a series of conditions, such as “If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs...”
If the young boy can meet this demanding list of conditions, then he'll triumphantly emerge from his experiences as a man. All of the possible scenarios set out in the poem are intended to test the youngster's manhood. If he can get through them, then he will have lived up to the speaker's high expectations.
Although the poem isn't addressed to readers directly, its title makes us think about what we would do in all the various scenarios presented by the speaker. For example, he says, “If you can dream—and not make dream your master.” For a lot of people, that might be a particularly difficult task.
So many of us are in thrall to our dreams, living in a fantasy world instead of facing up to the cold, hard truth of reality. When we come to this particular part of the poem, we might reasonably ask ourselves the question, “Would I be able to do that?” And much the same applies to the other scenarios in the poem.
The title of the poem doesn't just consist of the word “if.” It also contains a dash. On the face of it, this may seem rather trivial, but in actual fact, Kipling's decision to use a dash in the title is fraught with significance. Straight away, we're left in no doubt that what's about to follow should make us sit up and take notice.
The dash is effectively the gateway into the poem, inviting us to read on. Having read the poem, we may reject what is said, we may find it irrelevant to our situation, we may even dislike the poem and its sentiments, but one thing we cannot do is ignore the seriousness of manner in which the speaker's words are expressed. The dash in the title promised something important, and that promise was most certainly fulfilled.
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