Question

Which lines from "If" by Rudyard Kipling are the best 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.

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Answer 2

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating.

Step-by-step explanation:

First, here is the poem:

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!

In poetry, repetition is a technique by which the author repeats different words or phrases. By doing this, the author emphasizes an idea and creates a sense of urgency by focusing the reader's attention in a specific idea.

If we read the poem above, we can see these two lines:

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

We can see that these two lines have the same structure "or being + verb + don't + complement". Also, in each line the author has lied + lies and then hated + hating, therefore repeating specific words.

If we read the rest of the poem we can see that these are the only lines that have both a similar structure next to each other and a repetition of words.

Thus, these 2 lines are the best example of repetition.