1) The title of the poem is “If…”.
2) The poet’s name is Rudyard Kipling.
3) The rhyme scheme is:
Stanza 1: aaaa bcbc
Stanza 2: abab cdcd
Stanza 3: abab cdcd
4) Favourite Lines:
“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch;”
“With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it”
5) Theme/Central Idea:
The central idea of the poem is advice given by a father to his son about life and how he should behave in order to some day be a good, perfect human being.
6) Figures of Speech: Alliteration, Antithesis, Hyperbole, Metaphor.
7) Special features: This poem uses a different rhyme scheme in its first stanza from the second and third stanza. There is clever use of Metaphor to convey the central idea. The poet also explains what you should be doing and should not be doing within the same lines.
8) I like this poem as it deals with an important topic on our attitude and outlook towards life that will help us become successful and be a good person.
Please post question and answers of 2.5 Book Review – Swami and Friends by R. K. Narayan and 2.6 World Heritage
The central idea is too short .
The poem IF is a didactic monologue by Rudyard Kipling. The poem is written in paternal advice to poets son about how to live his life and how to become a perfect man. The father wants his son to be calm and composed. He should have complete faith in himself. Honesty and patience will help him to face any difficulty. The poem is divided into four stanzas with same length. Rudyard Kipling advocates the virtues of patience, modesty, control, perseverance, tolerance, determination and confidence.