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Collection of poems by Rudyard Kipling From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Five Nations, a collection of poems by English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), was first published in late 1903, both in the United Kingdom [1] and the U.S.A.[2] Some of the poems were new; some had been published before (notably "Recessional"" in 1897), sometimes in different versions.
In 1903, the United Kingdom consisted of four nations: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It was soon suggested that Kipling's "five nations" were the "five free nations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa [i.e. Cape Colony], and 'the islands of the sea' [i.e. the British Isles]" [3]—all dominated by Britons; and except in the last case, by recent settlers. That suggestion was endorsed some one hundred years later.[4]
In an early (1903) review, American critic Bliss Perry delicately called The Five Nations both "a notable collection" and "singularly restricted in range of interest".[3]
The poems are divided into two groups. The first is untitled, and covers a wide range of subjects. The second is titled "Service Songs", and mostly relates to the real or imagined experiences of common British soldiers around the turn of the 20th century.
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