The White Man's Burden  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

"‘White man's burden’ instantly conjures up a real problem, even if one feels that it ought to be altered to ‘black man’s burden’. One may disagree to the middle of one’s bones with the political attitude implied in ‘The Islanders’, but one cannot say that it is a frivolous attitude. Kipling deals in thoughts which are both vulgar and permanent. This raises the question of his special status as a poet, or verse-writer."--"Rudyard Kipling" (1941) by George Orwell

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

"The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the subtitle The United States and the Philippine Islands.

Interpretation

The imperialist interpretation of "The White Man's Burden" (1899) proposes that the white man has a moral obligation to rule the non-white peoples of the Earth, whilst encouraging their economic, cultural, and social progress through colonialism.

In the later 20th century, in the context of decolonisation and the Developing World, the phrase "the white man's burden" was emblematic of the "well-intentioned" aspects of Western colonialism and "Eurocentrism". The poem's imperialist interpretation also includes the milder, philanthropic colonialism of the missionaries:

The implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit — economic or strategic or otherwise — of Britain, itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self-government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized (and Christianized).

The poem positively represents colonialism as the moral burden of the white race, which is divinely destined to civilise the brutish and barbarous parts of the world; to wit, the Filipino people are "new-caught, sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child". Although imperialist beliefs were common currency in the culture of that time, there were opponents to Kipling's poetic representation of imperial conquest and colonisation, notably Mark Twain (To the Person Sitting in Darkness, 1901) and William James; for them, "The White Man's Burden" was plain of manner, meaning, and intent.

Kipling offered the poem to Theodore Roosevelt, then governor of New York state (1899–1900), to help him politically persuade anti-imperialist Americans to accept the annexation of the Philippine Islands to the United States.

In the event, the Norton Anthology of English Literature thematically aligns the poem "The White Man's Burden" (1899) with Kipling's beliefs that the British Empire (1583–1945) was the Englishman's "Divine Burden to reign God's Empire on Earth."

Full text

Source: Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden," McClure's Magazine 12 (1899), pp. 290-1.


           Take up the White Man's burden--
           	Send forth the best ye breed--
           Go, bind your sons to exile
           	To serve your captive's 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 was 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 hope to nought.
           	
           Take up the White Man's burden--
           	No iron 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, make 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 humor
           	(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
           "Why brought ye 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 will or whisper,
           	By all ye leave or do,
           The silent sullen peoples
           	Shall weigh your God and you.
           
           Take up the White Man's burden!
           	Have done with childish days--
           The lightly-proffered laurel,
           	The easy ungrudged praise:
           Comes now, to search your manhood
           	Through all the thankless years,
           Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
           	The judgement of your peers.
           	


See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "The White Man's Burden" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools