Definición y significado de if

  Edition of If by Doubleday Page and Company, Garden City, New York, 1910.

Wikisource has original text related to this article: If—

"If—" is a poem written in 1895^[1] by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the "Brother Square Toes" chapter of Rewards and Fairies, Kipling's 1910 collection of short stories and poems. Like William Ernest Henley's "Invictus", it is a memorable evocation of Victorian stoicism and the "stiff upper lip" that popular culture has made into a traditional British virtue.^[2] Its status is confirmed both by the number of parodies it has inspired, and by the widespread popularity it still enjoys amongst Britons. It is often voted Britain's favourite poem.^[3][4] this poem was printed, framed and fixed to the wall in front of the study desk in the officer cadets cabins at the National Defence Academy (NDA) at Pune India. The very pressence of If in front of each desk, has inspired thousands of the Armed Forces officers trained at the NDA over the last half century. The poem's line, "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same" is written on the wall of the Centre Court players' entrance at the British tennis tournament, Wimbledon, and a part of the poem was read in a promotional video for the Wimbledon 2008 gentleman's final by Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.^[5][6][7]

According to Kipling in his autobiography Something of Myself, posthumously published in 1937, the poem was inspired by Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, who in 1895 led a raid by British forces against the Boers in South Africa, subsequently called the Jameson Raid.^[8] This defeat increased the tensions that ultimately led to the Second Boer War. The British press, however, portrayed Jameson as a hero in the middle of the disaster, and the actual defeat as a British victory.^{[citation needed]} Jameson's life - and the connection to the poem - is covered in the book The If Man.

  Text

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

  Influence

• Joni Mitchell used this poem in the song "If" from her 2007 album "Shine". She changed the last verse and updated the language.^[9].
• Progressive rock band "Six Elements" used this poem in the song "If" from their 2012 album "Primary Elements"^[10].
• The first four lines of the poem are used in the chorus of the Judie Tzuke's song "If (When You Go)".
• "If" was Ayn Rand's favorite poem. Her graveside service in Valhalla, NY, consisted only of a reading of the poem "If" before Rand was buried beside her husband ^[11].
• In 2007 in response to the question about the two grueling days of hearing on Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus told reporters at the National Press Club that he took some strength from Kipling's poem "If".^[12]

  References

  External links

• George Horne's typographic animation of "If—" (read by Des Lynam, music by Fauré).
• Reading of "If—" in Wikimedia
• Free human-read audio recordings of "If—"
• Authentic digital editions archive of "If—" multiform editions at Dalhousie University Library, Canada - Original Author Autographed, Calligraphed/Typed Broadsides, Collector Multipage and Human Voice, Enhanced Video based Multimedia"
• The If Man: Dr Leander Starr Jameson, the Inspiration for Kipling's Masterpiece by Chris Ash
• Rudyard Kipling's "If" made into a song by Six Elements a video of the song produced by "All Things If" magazine.