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The speaker of “If—” doesn’t describe a specific setting for the poem. Due to the lack of a concrete time and place for the setting, we may be tempted to interpret the advice offered in the poem as being universal. However, it’s important to remember that even if the speaker implicitly frames his advice as universal, his vision of masculinity owes much to Kipling’s Victorian morality. Kipling was deeply influenced by the traditional, conservative ideals that had thrived in nineteenth-century England, during Queen Victoria’s reign. By the early twentieth century, many people felt exhausted by the moral rigidity and general conservatism of the Victorian period. Kipling, however, remained invested in Victorian notions of masculinity, which privileged levelheadedness, self-assurance, and perseverance as key virtues. This is all to say that, even though the poem lacks a concrete setting in terms of time and place, the vision of masculinity centered in the poem comes from late-nineteenth-century England.

Next section Themes

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