The thin red line

John Huston’s 1975 film of Kiplng’s “The Man Who Would Be King” made it clear that Kipling had something to offer a modern audience. In the aftermath of 9/11, Steve Sailer commented that “Kipling’s sharp eye for the rewards and dangers of imperialism is suddenly relevant once again.” As Allen Barra wrote in his review of David Gilmour’s 2002 biography of Kipling: “Kipling lives on.”
Can the same be said of Kipling’s poetry or, rather, as Eliot chracterized it in his essay on Kiplng, his verse? In the April issue of the New Criterion, Roger Kimball takes the occasion of a new edition of Kipling’s poetry to make the case for it as well. Kimball’s essay is “Rudyard Kipling unburdened.”