Charlie Chaplin was not hopeful when the talkies arrived in Hollywood. 'It would mean giving up my tramp character entirely. Some people suggested that the tramp might talk. This was unthinkable.' In his introduction, probably the most searching piece of Kipling criticism to date, Craig Raine quotes Chaplin's words, and his further comment that the 'matrix' out of which the tramp was born was 'as mute as the rags he wore'.

LRB 19 February 1987 | PDF Download