The Conundrum of the Workshops

“The Conundrum of the Workshops” is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling, first published in September 1890 in the magazine The Scots Observer and later included in Kipling’s collection Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses (1892). Through a series of Biblical illusions followed by references to 19th-century aesthetic debates, it addresses the age-old question of what makes Art; that is, which forms of human creative expression deserve to be valued as Art. From Adam in the Garden of Eden to the artists in Kipling’s London, human joy in creative expression has been tempered by doubts about its value. In the poem, the Devil insinuates such doubt by repeatedly questioning whether various human creations amount to Art. Kipling concludes that modern people are as incapable of defining what Art is as the first Biblical man, implying that it is a futile pursuit. The poem’s implicit point is that there is no right or wrong way to create Art and that those who make evaluative judgments about Art approach it incorrectly.

Poet Biography

Rudyard Kipling was born to British parents living in India in 1865. When he was six years old, they sent him to be educated in England. Kipling returned to India in 1881 and started working as a journalist. Soon, he also began publishing poetry and short stories inspired by the lives of Anglo Indians, British citizens who spent most of their lives in India, many of them as officials of the British Empire. These texts manifest both a proud admiration of the courage and industriousness of Anglo Indian men, especially soldiers, and a genuine interest in local cultures. Some of Kipling’s work, like the notorious poem “The White Man’s Burden” (1899), have overtones of racist condescension in their depiction of the native population as infantile or savage, underscoring how such views were common at the time. European colonialists saw themselves as bringing the light of civilization into the primitive darkness of the colonized lands. On the other hand, more complex work, such as his novel Kim (1901), balances imperial prejudice with an appreciative depiction of native Indigenous ways of life.

Just as his stories and poems began to attract attention, Kipling decided to move back to England in 1899, at the age of 24. He was put off by what he perceived as cliquish and over-refined characteristics of London literary circles, especially those related to the so-called aesthetic movement. “The Conundrum of the Workshops” is, in part, his response to their preoccupation with the concept of Art. Kipling preferred the simple, manly, physical virtues of British soldiers to the bookish, contemplative, and sometimes effete ways of certain artists and art critics. He enjoyed the convivial atmosphere of the music halls and working-class pubs, where he sometimes met with relatives of the soldiers he knew in India.

Between 1892 and 1896, Kipling lived in Vermont with his American wife, but then he returned to England, where he bought a country estate and one of the earliest automobiles in the country. Nevertheless, he continued traveling a lot and publishing prolifically, including some of his best-known work, such as the two-volume Jungle Books (1894, 1895). In 1907, he became the first English author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The catastrophe of World War One (1914-1918), including the death in battle of Kipling’s only son, contributed to a gradual decrease in his writing. He assumed various public duties, most notably as chair of the Imperial War Graves Commission, responsible for building and maintaining public war memorials across the globe. In the final year before his death in 1936, Kipling wrote the autobiography Something of Myself: for my Friends Known and Unknown, which was published posthumously in 1937.

Poem Text

When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,

Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold;

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,

Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Wherefore he called to his wife and fled to fashion his work anew—

The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;

And he left his lore to the use of his sons—and that was a glorious gain

When the Devil chuckled: "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.

They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,

Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?"

The stone was dropped by the quarry-side, and the idle derrick swung,

While each man talked of the aims of art, and each in an alien tongue.

They fought and they talked in the north and the south, they talked and they fought in the west,

Till the waters rose on the jabbering land, and the poor Red Clay had rest—

Had rest till the dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,

And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"

The tale is old as the Eden Tree—as new as the new-cut tooth—

For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;

And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,

The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,

We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,

We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is drawn by the cart;

But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"

When the flicker of London's sun falls faint on the club-room's green and gold,

The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mold—

They scratch with their pens in the mold of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start

When the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it art?"

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the four great rivers flow,

And the wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,

And if we could come when the sentry slept, and softly scurry through,

By the favor of God we might know as much—as our father Adam knew.

Kipling, Rudyard. “The Conundrum of the Workshops.” 1890. Poets.org.

Summary

The poem consists of eight quatrains (four-line stanzas), comprising thirty-two lines altogether. The first four stanzas develop the poem’s theme about Art through a series of vivid references to famous passages in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. The second half of the poem addresses that theme more directly and places it in the contemporary setting of 19th-century London.

The first stanza depicts Adam in the Garden of Eden joyfully drawing with a stick until the Devil whispers: “It’s pretty, but is it Art?” (Line 4). In response, Adam reworks his drawing, thus becoming the first man to care about artistic criticism. He leaves that inheritance of artistic doubt to his sons Cain and Abel, and through them to all humankind. The third stanza refers to the Tower of Babel, a human creation that reaches the sky but falls apart and leads to discord after the Devil questions whether it is Art. Human disagreement and fighting lead to the Deluge, the Biblical flood described in the fourth stanza, survived by Noah and the animals he brought onto his ark. But even the value of that humanity-saving creation, Noah’s ark, is questioned by the Devil: “is it Art?” (Line 16).

The fifth stanza begins the commentary on the poem’s theme. It is an old story that the confidence of children is eroded as they grow into adults until at deathbed they succumb to the Devil’s insinuations and start doubting the value of their lives. Through several ambiguous metaphors, the sixth stanza expands on the theme of human susceptibility to self-doubt, leading to the specific situation in London of Kipling’s time, depicted in the seventh stanza: Modern men strive to create, just like Adam did, but agonize over the value of their creations and lives. The final stanza concludes that, if we could return to the Garden of Eden today, we would realize that, at best, we know only as much as our father Adam did.