Barrack-Room Ballads

by Rudyard Kipling

First collected in 1892, Kipling's "Barrack-Room Ballads" relive the experiences of soldiers sent around the world to defend the Empire-all for little pay and less appreciation. An immediate success, they were unlike anything the public had seen before.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, British Literature, Historical Fiction

84 pages, Paperback

Published July 28, 2008

About the author

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was a journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.

Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). His poems include Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1919), The White Man's Burden (1899), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature; and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".

Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 41, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."

Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with much less success than before. On the night of 12 January 1936, Kipling suffered a haemorrhage in his small intestine. He underwent surgery, but died less than a week later on 18 January 1936 at the age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer. Kipling's death had in fact previously been incorrectly announced in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."

Reviews

[Zoeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having first read "If" as a part of my English syllabus in school, I was already fascinated by this other side of Rudyard Kipling - his contribution to English poetry which comprised a large, illustrious and eclectic body of work on a dazzling range of subjects - from imperialism to war, from English folklore to Indian fables and myths, from religion and morality to heroism and adventure, from animals to mythology - often gets overshadowed by his equally influential contribution to prose and storytelling. Here was a poet who was a little different from the prophet of imperialism that Orwell once dubbed him; true, a good number of his poems and ballads romanticised not only the Raj but also the very concept of ruling and administering the far-flung outposts of the Empire but beneath some of the idealistic romance, there would also be an unmistakable layer of sardonic satire and critical commentary. As much as Kipling could have been envisioning a happier, more colourful facet to imperialism and colonialism, he was equally adept and astute in portraying its grim, even unsavoury realities with his eloquent voice as a writer and poet to give full tongue to his concerns as well.

And so, the first part of this collection of verses and poems, "Barrack-Room Ballads" is Kipling at his most ruthlessly but elegantly sarcastic. By portraying not complicated political and social conundrums of the Raj in India but simply chronicling the trials and tribulations of the hapless soldiers of the Empire, compelled to do their sometimes noble, sometimes ignoble duty to keep the flag of the Empire flying across the subcontinent, he managed to create an under-side picture of just how the rule of the Crown was enforced and what was the bloody, undignified cost of the same, paid by in blood and loss of innocence by these very soldiers in the first place. Barring the mesmerising and tenderly nostalgic "Mandalay", in which a British soldier remembers and yearns for the happy, languid and romantic idyll of the Burma that he has left behind, all the other verses and poems in this collection are, for most part, unremittingly dark and grim, laced with Kipling's customary wit and gift of irony and his hypnotic eye for vivid, surreal detail.

I almost imagined these poor helpless British soldiers, sweating and panting in the afternoon under the merciless sun and riddled with cholera and bad food, haunted by beasts, myths and ghosts and finding some solace in their evening whiskey, singing aloud in their inadequately equipped barracks. It is hard to choose any one single favourite of these ballads - favourites in the sense of being the most brilliantly drawn and empathetic portraits of these hapless men far away from home - "Tommy" and "Danny Deever" show the British soldier at his most disgruntled and disillusioned; "The Young British Soldier" is a heartbreaking ballad that chronicles all the private and public disasters that the titular recruit would have to face in his entire career in India. There is the broad physical comedy of "Oonts" devoted to the camels of India - the word "oont" means a camel in Hindi and Urdu. And there is the provocative racial commentary of "Gunga Din", which, while eloquently romanticised as a ballad of an uneasy camaraderie between the British soldiers and their Indian servants, turns out to be also, in a different light, a stirring, poignant and sardonic tale of rugged admiration and fellow-feeling found in the most unlikely spot of all - in the midst of a bloody battle. If I had to pick only one though, I would choose "Gentlemen Rankers" which superbly and elegantly deconstructs the chivalrous nobility of these troops and compels us to see, for the first time, their solitude and moral decrepitude at the same time.

The latter half of this edition is called as "Other Verses" and they are, true to Kipling's style, a mostly mixed-up bunch of some great verses, some long-winded poems that dawdle on for a little too long than necessary and perhaps one or two that I could not quite connect to; strange, for Kipling has always managed to evoke a reaction, mostly of wonder or ironic amusement, from me. And yet, this is not to say that even one of these poems and songs is even remotely bad or inferior in quality. Rather, every one of them is a testament to their writer's dazzling breadth of imagination, gift of humour, penchant for empathy and deft grasp of morality. The ones that stick and linger the most here are "The Ballad Of East and West" in which a British soldier discovers a grudging admiration for the courage and daredevilry of an Afghan horse-thief and the latter too grows to admire the soldier's stiff upper-lip; "The Ballad Of A King's Jest" which has some of the most beautiful and mesmerising opening verses I have ever read in a poem, tugging us into the midst of a modest feast in a camped "kaafila" (convoy) in the North West frontier, where we meet one of Kipling's most charming characters in "Kim", Mahbub Ali, the horse-trader and possible spy. I was also almost moved to tears by one of Kipling's Indian staples - "The Last Suttee" in which the queen of a deceased king wills to do her sacred duty even as she is restrained by her British guards.

Stirring, sad, spectacularly written ballads, all of these, with rigorously rendered images and scenes that will linger in your mind. As for the rest, there are a few that follow the fortunes and misfortunes of sailors on seas infested with pirates and threatened by storm that struck me more hypnotically than even Conrad but there are also a few other poems that feel a little too didactic or even obscure - or perhaps I need to brush up my history a bit and understand their context? - and which dimmed, slightly, the overall impact of this book on me. All in all, though, for anybody looking to savour an assuredly rich taste of Kipling's talents at both poetry and storytelling, these ballads and poems should do very well.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites: "Gunga Din", "Tommy", "Fuzzy-Wuzzy", "Danny Deever", and "Gentleman-Rankers".

[Elizabeth S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains the following poems:
Danny Deever
"Tommy"
"Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
Oonts!
Loot
Soldier, Soldier
The Sons of the Widow
Troopin'
Gunga Din
Mandalay
The Young British Soldier
Screw-Guns
Belts
Departmental Ditties: General Summary
Army Headquarters
Study of an Elevation, In Indian Ink
A Legend of the Foreign Office
The Story of Uriah
The Post that Fitted
Public Waste
Delilah
What Happened
Pink Dominoes
The Man Who Could Write
Municipal
A Code of Morals
The Last Department
L'Envoi
Recessional

[Aditya Mallya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure British soldiers would have loved this material back in the day, but I found these poems far too dull and difficult to read.

[Carlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read with context, these are a brilliant portrayal of the individuals who comprised the “thin red line” of the British infantry.
Published in 1892 at the height of the British Empire, these verses do include racial epithets and record the military forces that maintained colonialism, but they are written in colloquial English about the ordinary soldier (private), not the officers and gentlemen.
The verses are set mainly in the Indian subcontinent, but they try to capture the experience of the infantry in any war, the boredom, senselessness of orders and arbitrary death, for little warmth and reward. This selection most famously starts with Danny Deever, whose hanging is witnessed by Files-on-Parade, who recalls drinking his beer a score of times, and also includes Gunga Din, the regimental bhisti who carries water for the soldiers and dies rescuing an injured soldier, and Mandalay, with a time-expired soldier in drizzling London recalling the “Burma girl” he left behind in Mandalay.
But there is no shying away from the likelihood of death, this from The Young British Soldier:
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
And should the soldier survive to return to Britain, then there is little to look forward to, with the Troop-Sergeant-Major reduced to being a hotel doorman in Shillin’ a Day:
Oh, it drives me half crazy to think of the days I
Went slap for the Ghazi, my sword at my side,
When we rode Hell-for-leather
Both squadrons together,
That didn't care whether we lived or we died.
But it's no use despairin', my wife must go charin'
An' me commissairin' the pay-bills to better,
So if me you be'old
In the wet and the cold,
By the Grand Metropold, won't you give me a letter?

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobel Prize 🏆 in Literature 1907
It was Clive James wrote that Rudyard Kipling is mostly known for his novels and short stories, but was also a good poet.
This bundle of army songs is interesting, because it is written in soldiers' vernacular and many of these poems should really be set to music and sung by drunk soldiers to be fully appreciated. I tried one to the tune of Nick Cave's "Papa won't leave you Henry", which worked out well!

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A selection of Rudyard’s military poetry and barrack room songs.
As with all collections some are better than others. I found some them awkward to read due to them be written phonetically.
Nice quick read though and 1 I recommend to people who want an easy Rudyard Kipling book to read.

[Lance Greenfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very moving ballads in here, and a few laughs amongst the sad ones too. Although this collection was written decades ago, they still strike a chord with anybody with any military experience at all.

This is a book to keep on one's bookshelf to dip in and out of whenever the mood takes.

[Hbksmile · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a child, I considered the language cheesy. As an older child I would often recant the stories on a long hump packed with too much gear and a machine gun. I wanna say it made sense then.