‘Rudyard Kipling’ – T. S. Eliot

https://tseliot.com/prose/rudyard-kipling I

We expect to have to defend a poet against the charge of obscurity; we have to defend Kipling against the charge of excessive lucidity. We expect a poet to be reproached for lack of respect for the intelligence of the common man, or even for deliberately flouting the intelligence of the common man: we have to defend Kipling against the charge of being a ‘journalist’ appealing only to the commonest collective emotions. We expect a poet to be ridiculed because his verse does not appear to scan: we must defend Kipling against the charge of writing jingles.