Question

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,”
Rudyard Kipling

How is the title of Kipling’s poem "If” also an example of repetition?

Answer 1

Sample Response: The title of the poem "If" begins many of the lines. This shows the importance of trying to follow the speaker's advice: if the son can do all of these things, says the speaker, he will be a man. Repeating "if" also helps the poet stress that nothing is certain in the world.

Answer 2

Repetition is a literary device that makes an idea or message clearer by using it continuously.

It can also be used as a rhetorical device; a word, line or sentence repeated to make its significance in the whole text more emphatic.

From the poem above, the poet uses repetition of the word "If" to emphasizes the need for calm.

"If you can wait and not be tired by waiting," from line 5 shows that the author believes there is a reward if we meet a certain requirement.