Increasingly readers since World War I have neither enjoyed nor felt instructed by poetry which often is, quite blatantly, politically imperialist and socially reactionary— sounding like and appealing to, in George Orwell's words, a "gutter patriot." Also contrary to most twentieth-century taste—which has, of course, been primarily formed by modernism— are Kipling's characteristically rhyming, rhythmically regular, formal stanzas. He was also intent on writing clear, matter-of-fact statements expressed by a voice certain about a particular point of view: again, rather the antithesis of a modernist persona. Nevertheless, such a characterization of Kipling's poetry, although justified and clearly recognized by most of its admirers, is superficial; for in his verse one can also find many of the great qualities of the best modernist poetry: plainness, concision, passionate utterance instead of worn-out poetic diction, conviction, sharp images, a revitalized sense of history, great artistic craft, originality.
In 1941 T. S. Eliot—who has written the most enlightening, evaluative essay on Kipling's work—resuscitated interest in the verse by editing and writing an introduction for A Choice of Kipling's Verse. Eliot saw three periods in Kipling's career: his living in India, his worldwide travel and residence in America, his final years in Sussex, England.
