"Danny Deever" is an 1890 poem by

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

, one of the first of the Barrack-Room Ballads. It received wide critical and popular acclaim, and is often regarded as one of the most significant pieces of Kipling's early verse. The poem, a

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

, describes the execution of a British soldier in India for murder. His execution is viewed by his regiment, paraded to watch it, and the poem is composed of the comments they exchange as they see him hanged.

Background and origins

Kipling had worked as a journalist in northern

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

during the 1880s, initially for the ''

Civil and Military Gazette ''The Civil and Military Gazette'' was a daily English-language newspaper founded in 1872 in British India. It was published from Lahore, Simla and Karachi, some times simultaneously, until its closure in 1963.The Pioneer'' in Allahabad. In 1886, the ''Gazette'' was taken over by a new editor, who began publishing Kipling's short stories and poetry to "put some sparkle" into the paper. Later that year, a first volume of the poems was published as '' Departmental Ditties'', and a volume of short stories, ''

Plain Tales from the Hills ''Plain Tales from the Hills'' (published 1888) is the first collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Out of its 40 stories, "eight-and-twenty", according to Kipling's ''Preface'', were initially published in the ''Civil and Military Ga ...

'', followed in 1887. He continued to write at a rapid rate, publishing in a number of different papers and, in 1888, the Indian Railway Library series published five new volumes of short stories plus a novel. A growing theme in these stories was Army life, particularly among working-class private soldiers rather than the middle-class young officers who had appeared in the pre-1887 stories. Starting with ''

The Three Musketeers ''The Three Musketeers'' () is a French historical adventure novel written and published in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is the first of the author's three d'Artagnan Romances. As with some of his other works, he wrote it in col ...

'' (March 1887, then ''Plain Tales''), he began a series with a recurring trio of privates, Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris, who described the adventures of barracks life in exaggerated Yorkshire, Irish, and Cockney accents. His focus on the soldier as an individual, rather than a romanticised caricature, was unusual for the period; Charles Carrington, his official biographer, argued that "you will find no treatment of the English soldier on any adequate scale between Shakespeare and Kipling". There is some dispute about how well Kipling knew actual soldiers; Carrington suggested he mainly socialised with officers and drew his characters from ex-servicemen he had known in his schooldays, while

David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter who is a member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined in 1967, shortly before the departure of the founder member Syd Barrett. By the early 1980s, Pink F ...

recorded that he visited barracks and canteens at Mian Mir as the guest of the NCOs, taking a particular interest in slang and soldier's songs. In early 1889, Kipling left the ''Pioneer'', and decided to return to England to further his literary career. After a voyage through the Far East and across North America, he arrived in England that October. Here, his first new poetry was published (under a pseudonym, "Yussuf") in '' Macmillan's Magazine'' in November and December 1889 - one of these, ''

The Ballad of East and West "The Ballad of East and West" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in 1889, and has been much collected and anthologized since. The poem Kamal, a tribal chieftain in the Military history of the North-West Frontier, North-West Fr ...

'', would become one of his best known works - followed by a series of pieces submitted to William Henley's '' Scots Observer''. The second of these, ''Danny Deever'', was published on 22 February 1890 and rapidly followed by a series of others which would become known as the '' Barrack-Room Ballads''. In 1889, prior to leaving India, Kipling had offered a series of twelve "soldier poems" to a publisher under the name ''Barrack-Room Ballads'', but it is not known which poems were contained in this. Edmonia Hill, a friend who travelled with him on the voyage to America, wrote in her diary that after leaving Burma he announced "I'll write some Tommy Atkins ballads". The majority of the series are assumed to have been written in early 1890. The poem describes the execution of a soldier for murder, and it has been suggested that it was inspired in part by the execution of Private Flaxman of the Leicestershire Regiment, at

Lucknow Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...

in 1887. A number of details of this execution correspond to the occasion described by Kipling in the poem, and he later used a story similar to that of Flaxman's as a basis for the story ''Black Jack''. A number of Kipling's short stories and poems of the period can be identified as having their origins in a wide range of sources, ranging from contemporary reports of fighting in Burma to passages from '' Daniel Deronda''.

Summary

The form is a

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts suc ...

, between a young and inexperienced soldier (or soldiers; he is given as "Files-on-Parade", suggesting a group) and a more experienced and older NCO ("the

Colour-Sergeant Colour sergeant (CSgt or C/Sgt) is a rank of non-commissioned officer found in several armies and marine corps. Australia In the Australian Army, the rank of colour sergeant has only existed in the Corps of Staff Cadets at the Royal Militar ...

"). The setting is an execution, generally presumed to be somewhere in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

; a soldier, one Danny Deever, has been tried and sentenced to death for murdering a fellow soldier in his sleep, and his battalion is paraded to witness the

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

. This procedure strengthened discipline in the unit, by a process of deterrence, and helped inure inexperienced soldiers to the sight of death. The young soldier is unaware of what is happening, at first – he asks why the bugles are blowing, and why the Sergeant looks so pale, but is told that Deever is being hanged, and that the regiment is drawn up in " llow square" to see it. He presses the Sergeant further, in the second verse – why are people breathing so hard? why does a man in the front-rank collapse? These signs of the effect that watching the hanging has upon the men of the regiment are explained away by the Sergeant as being due to the cold weather or the bright sun. The voice is reassuring, keeping the young soldier calm in the sight of death, just as the Sergeant will calm him with his voice in combat. In the third verse, Files thinks of Deever, saying that he slept alongside him, and drank with him, but the Sergeant reminds him that Deever is now alone, that he sleeps "out an' far to-night", and reminds the soldier of the magnitude of Deever's crime – (Nine hundred was roughly the number of men in a single infantry

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of up to one thousand soldiers. A battalion is commanded by a lieutenant colonel and subdivided into several Company (military unit), companies, each typically commanded by a Major (rank), ...

, and as regiments were formed on local lines, most would have been from the same county; it is thus emphasised that his crime is a black mark against both the regiment, as a whole, and against his comrades). The fourth verse comes to the hanging; Files sees the body against the sun, and then feels his soul as it "whimpers" overhead; the term reflects a shudder in the ranks as they watch Deever die. Finally, the Sergeant moves the men away; though it is not directly mentioned in the poem, they would be marched past the corpse on the gallows – reflecting that the recruits are shaking after their ordeal, and that "they'll want their beer to-day".

Structure

The poem is composed of four eight-line verses, containing a

between two (or three) voices: The four verses each consist of two questions asked by "Files" and answered by the Sergeant- a call-and-response form – and then another four lines of the Sergeant explaining, as above. In some interpretations, the second four lines are taken to be spoken by a third voice, another "file-on-parade". Both the poem's rhythm and its

rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rh ...

reinforce the idea of drilling infantry by giving the effect of feet marching generally but not perfectly in unison: Although the poem's overall meter is iambic, each line in the verses and, to the slightly lesser extent, the chorus features syllables with additional grammatical and phonetic emphasis that fit the rhythm of the "left, left, left right left" marching cadence. The first four lines always end with the same word, and the last four feature an aaab rhyme scheme with slightly lighter syllables that force the pace into a brisk march despite its somber mood (''cf.'' the text of the poem's final chorus). As the scholar Henry W. Wells put it in 1943, Kipling's chorus with "tripping

anapaest An anapaest (; also spelled anapæst or anapest, also called antidactylus) is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one; in accentual stress meters it consi ...

s" contrasts with the "grave iambs" of the verses, is powerfully expressive of the "masterly irony" in the ballad. These parallel, Wells writes, the stark contrast between the heaviness of the soldiers' hearts with the briskness of "military quick-step".

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

noted the imperfect rhyme scheme – ''parade'' and ''said'' do not quite rhyme – as strongly contributing to this effect, with the slight interruption supporting the feel of a large number of men marching together, not quite in harmony.Eliot, p. 11.

Critical reaction

''Danny Deever'' is often seen as one of Kipling's most powerful early works, and was greeted with acclaim when first published.

David Masson David Mather Masson (2 December 18226 October 1907), was a Scotland, Scottish academic, supporter of women's suffrage, literary critic and historian. Biography Masson was born in Aberdeen, the son of Sarah Mather and William Masson, a sto ...

, a professor of literature at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, is often reported (perhaps apocryphally) to have waved the magazine in which it appeared at his students, crying "Here's literature! Here's literature at last!". W. E. Henley, the editor of the ''Scots Observer'', is even said to have danced on his wooden leg when he first received the text.Carrington, p. 198 The poem was later commented on by the poet

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th century in literature, 20th-century literature. He was ...

, who noted that " iplinginterests a critical audience today by the grotesque tragedy of ''Danny Deever''".''The Oxford Book of Modern Verse'' (Introduction),

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...

. Oxford University Press, 1936. Quoted in Carrington, p. 411. Another poet,

, called the poem "technically (as well as in content) remarkable", holding it up as one of the best of Kipling's ballads. He included the poem in his 1941 collection ''

A Choice of Kipling's Verse ''A Choice of Kipling's Verse, made by T. S. Eliot, with an essay on Rudyard Kipling'' is a book first published in December 1941 (by Faber and Faber in UK, and by Charles Scribner's Sons in U.S.A.). It is in two parts. The first part is an es ...

'' and offered analysis of the poem in the introduction. Eliot described the poem's combination of "heavy beat and variation of page" as remarkable both technically and in content. He concluded that ''Danny Deever'' was "a barrack-room ballad which somehow attains the intensity of poetry". Both Yeats and Eliot were writing shortly after Kipling's death, in 1936 and 1941, when critical opinion of his poetry was at a low point; both, nonetheless, drew out ''Danny Deever'' for attention as a significant work. Discussing that low critical opinion in a 1942 essay,

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

described ''Danny Deever'' as an example of Kipling "at his worst, and also his most vital ... almost a shameful pleasure, like the taste for cheap sweets that some people secretly carry into middle life". He felt the work was an example of what he described as "good bad poetry"; verse which is essentially vulgar, yet undeniably seductive and "a sign of the emotional overlap between the intellectual and the ordinary man."

Music

The Barrack-Room Ballads, as the name suggests, are songs of soldiers. Written by Kipling, they share a form and a style with traditional Army songs. Kipling was one of the first to pay attention to these works; Charles Carrington noted that in contrast to the songs of sailors, "no-one had thought of collecting genuine soldiers' songs, and when Kipling wrote in this traditional style it was not recognised as traditional". Kipling himself was fond of singing his poetry, of writing it to fit the rhythm of a particular tune. In this specific case, the musical source has been suggested as the Army's "grotesque bawdy song" '' Barnacle Bill the Sailor'', but it is possible that some other popular tune of the period was used. However, the ballads were not published with any music, and though they were quickly adapted to be sung, new musical settings were written; a musical setting by

Walter Damrosch Walter Johannes Damrosch (January 30, 1862December 22, 1950) was a Prussian-born American conductor and composer. He was the director of the New York Symphony Orchestra and conducted the world premiere performances of various works, including Aa ...

was described as " Teddy Roosevelt's favourite song", and is sometimes encountered on its own as a tune entitled ''They're Hanging Danny Deever in the Morning''. To date, at least a dozen published recordings are known, made from 1893 to 1985.Musical settings of Kipling's verse, ed. Brian Mattinson
/ref> The tune "They're Hanging Danny Deever in the Morning" (

) was played from the Campanile at UC Berkeley at the end of the last day of classes for the Spring Semester of 1930, and has been repeated every year since, with a certain ironic humour, at the beginning of final exams week, making it one of the oldest campus traditions.

Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who moved to the United States in 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long and ...

composed a setting of Danny Deever for male chorus and orchestra.

Notes

References

*''A Choice of Kipling's Verse'', T.S. Eliot, Faber and Faber, 1963. *''Rudyard Kipling: his life and work'', Charles Carrington. Pelican, 1970. (original edition 1955) *

External links

Text of ''Danny Deever'' at the Online Literature Network
* ttp://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200031148/default.html Two recordings of the Walter Damrosch setting of ''Danny Deever''at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

{{Rudyard Kipling Poetry by Rudyard Kipling 1890 poems Works originally published in British newspapers Rudyard Kipling poems about India Fiction about hanging