Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:45, 2 September 2011

Rabindranath Tagore রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর
Tagore in Kolkata, c. 1915.
Born	(1861-05-07)7 May 1861 Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died	7 August 1941(1941-08-07) (aged 80) Calcutta, Bengal Province, British India
Occupation	Poet, playwright, philosopher, composer, artist
Period	Bengal Renaissance
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature (1913)
Signature

Rabindranath Tagore (Template:Lang-bn) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he was the first non-European Nobel laureate. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his seemingly mesmeric persona, floccose locks, and empyreal garb lended him a prophet-like aura in the West. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.

A Pirali Brahmin from Kolkata, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At age sixteen, he cheekily released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhanushingho (Bhānusiṃha: "Sun Lion"), which were duly seized upon by the region's obligatory literary grandees as long-lost classics. Tagore graduated to his first short stories and dramas—and the aegis of his birth name—by 1877. He came to denounce the British Raj and he supported Indian independence; his efforts endure in his vast canon, comprising paintings, sketches, doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs, and in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.

Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to political and personal topics. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and contemplation. Tagore penned two national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.

Early life (1861–1901)

The youngest of thirteen surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Kolkata of parents Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875). Tagore family patriarchs were of gentle provenance and were the Brahmo founding fathers of the Adi Dharm faith. The fabulously loyalist "Prince" Dwarkanath Tagore, with his European estate managers and his serial visits with Queen Victoria and other occidental royals, was his grandfather. "Rabi" was raised mostly by servants, as his mother had died in his early childhood; his father travelled widely. Tagore largely begged off classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby idylls: Bolpur, Panihati. His upanayan initiation at age eleven augured a pivotal trip; Tagore forthwith left Calcutta on 14 February 1873 with his father for a months-long tour of outer India. They visited his father's Santiniketan estate and stopped in Amritsar en route to the Himalayan Dhauladhars, their destination the remote hill station at Dalhousie.

Amid crystalline peaks and a vivid chill Tagore read biographies in the rented lodge; his stridently learned father tutored him in history, astronomy, other modern sciences, and Sanskrit; they examined the poetry of Kālidāsa together. Through the months a frigid regime of twilight baths in icy water attended the sessions. He survived to return to Jorosanko and commence a writing spree; he completed a set of major works by 1877, one a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. Published pseudonymously, experts accepted them as the lost works of Bhānusiṃha, a newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet. He debuted the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"), and his Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the famous poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").

Tagore fancied himself a prospective barrister, and so in 1878 he took up studies anew, this time at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England. He stayed for some months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877, his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He did read law at University College London, but again left school to undertake freelance study of Shakespeare and other greats: Religio Medici, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less. In life and art Tagore resolved to hence reconcile septentrional strictures with his Hindu background; he would take the best from each. In 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902; they had five children, two of whom died in childhood.

In 1890 Tagore began managing his family's vast estates in Shelaidaha, a region now in Bangladesh; he was joined by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi (1890) poems, among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the riverine holdings in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge. He was a friendly feudalist who collected mostly token rents; he would bless villagers and in turn suffered their impromptu honorary feasts. This period from 1891 to 1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, after one of Tagore's magazines, was his most fecund. In it, he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Ironic and grave, they savoured the lazuline lacunae, the verdant verges of Bengali rural life.

Santiniketan (1901–1932)

In 1901, Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—"The Mandir"—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There, his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory ₹2,000 in book royalties. He was gaining Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse. In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won the year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focussed on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. In 1915, the British Crown granted Tagore a knighthood. He renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore afforded short shrift to Gandhi's scroggy Swaraj protests, which he despised as wretched recompense for India's mental—and thus ultimely colonial—dénouement. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis knowledge". In the early 1930s, he targeted India's "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.

Twilight years (1932–1941)

Tagore's international travels affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinized orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore's epistolary retort chided him for his seemingly unseemly, cullionly cant and his ignominious inferences. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the rising tide of militant mediocrity—social, cultural, architectural—in Bengal. He detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas: Chitrangada (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938); and in his novels: Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).

Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell. He never recovered. Poetry from these years is among his finest, a vestigial valour hieing towards death. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore: his last poem. He was the last to see Tagore alive.

Travels

Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents; these trips acquainted non-Indians with his works and polemics. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they impressed missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912, Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States and denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised, this latter by pacifists like Romain Rolland.

Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?

Shortly after returning to India, the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged US$100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for India in January 1925. On 30 May 1926, Tagore reached Naples, Italy; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport waned when Tagore questioned Il Duce's fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo’s chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".

On 14 July 1927, Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia, visiting Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. Tagore's travelogues from the tour were collected into the work "Jatri". In early 1930 he left Bengal for nearly a year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—while his paintings were being exhibited in Paris and London—he stayed at a Quaker settlement in Birmingham. There he wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at London's annual Quaker gathering. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians—a topic he would tackle over the next two years—Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932, Tagore—who was acquainted with the legends and works of the Persian mystic Hafez—was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran. The well-heeled Tagore chatted with certain people: Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and Romain Rolland. Tagore's final foreign sojourns were in Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933): these only sharpened his views on the fissiparous freedoms afforded by communalism and nationalism.

Works

Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter: commoners. Tagore's non-fiction grappled Indian history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes.

Novels

Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged out of a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding. Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle.

In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her exploitative, rakish, and fatuously patriarchal husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of Bengali women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with the fall of Bengal's landed oligarchy. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She was brought up in a sheltered home where she had followed the traditional way of life and observed all the religious rituals like all the other womenfolk in the family.

Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by the main character, a poet. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism; stock characters gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by the name of Rabindranath Tagore. Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Satyajit Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore elaborately inscribes coeval Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He exposes the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. It is of choleric melancholy, a stirring tale of deceit and sorrow arising from dissatisfaction and sorrow. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".

The latter work illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, between the ideas of Western culture and revolution against Western culture. These moieties are portrayed in two of the main characters: Nikhil, who is rational and opposes violence; and Sandip, who as sumpter to his goals will not be stopped. These rivals are key in understanding the history of his region and its contemporary problems. There is much controversy over whether Tagore was representing Gandhi in Sandip. But many argue that Tagore would not even venture to personify Sandip as Gandhi because Tagore could—grudgingly—offer a sort of derogatory devotion to Gandhi's antiquarian ardor, and Gandhi was sententiously anti-violence while Sandip would employ violence in any respect to twin body and soul.

Music and art

Tagore composed 2,230 songs and was a prolific painter. His songs compose rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which is one with his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal color of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas.

Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan. His songs are immensely popular and undergird the Bengali ethos to an extent perhaps rivaling Shakespeare's impact on the English-speaking world. It is said that his songs are the outcome of five centuries of Bengali literary churning and communal yearning. Dhan Gopal Mukerji has said that these songs transcend the mundane to the aesthetic and express all ranges and categories of human emotion. The poet gave voice to all—big or small, rich or poor. The poor Ganges boatman and the rich landlord air their emotions in them. They birthed a distinctive school of music whose practitioners can be fiercely traditional: novel interpretations have drawn severe censure in both West Bengal and Bangladesh.

For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung ... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Arthur Strangways of The Observer introduced non-Bengalis to rabindrasangit in The Music of Hindostan, calling it a "vehicle of a personality ... go behind this or that system of music to that beauty of sound which all systems put out their hands to seize."

In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written—ironically—to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: lopping Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert the region's pyrolatrous demise. Tagore saw the partition as a ploy to upend the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised register of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of a Brahmo hymn that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the Indian national anthem in 1950.

At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green color blind. The result: his hale paintings betrayed fey colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore limned craftwork from northern New Ireland, Haida carvings from British Columbia, and woodcuts by Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for his handwriting were revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts.

Theatre

At sixteen, Tagore led his brother Jyotirindranath's adaptation of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. At twenty, he wrote his first drama-opera Valmiki Pratibha (The Genius of Valmiki), which describes how the pandit Valmiki reforms his ethos, is blessed by Saraswati, and composes the Rāmāyana. Through it, Tagore vigorously explores a wide range of dramatic styles and emotions, including usage of revamped kirtans and adaptation of traditional English and Irish folk melodies as drinking songs. Another play, Dak Ghar (The Post Office), describes how a child striving to escape his stuffy confines, ultimately "fall asleep" (which suggests his physical death). A story with worldwide appeal—with rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". In the Nazi-era Warsaw Ghetto, Polish doctor-educator Janusz Korczak had orphans in his care stage The Post Office in July 1942. In The King of Children, biographer Betty Jean Lifton suspected that Korczak, agonising over whether one should determine when and how to die, was easing the children into accepting death. Three weeks later, the Nazis sent them to Treblinka.

His other works emphasizing fusion of lyrical flow and emotional rhythm tightly focused on a core idea, were unlike previous Bengali dramas. His works sought to articulate, in Tagore's words, "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (Sacrifice), regarded as his finest drama. The Bengali originals included intricate subplots and prolonged monologues. His latter dramas probed more philosophical and allegorical themes; these included Dak Ghar. Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modeled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda—the Gautama Buddha's disciple—asks water of an Adivasi (belonging to an indigenous tribe) girl. Lastly, among his most famous dramas is Raktakaravi (Red Oleanders), which tells of a kleptocratic king who enriches himself by forcing his subjects to mine. The heroine, Nandini, eventually rallies her common people to destroy these symbols of subjugation. Tagore's other plays include Chitrangada, Raja, and Mayar Khela. Dance-drama adaptations of Tagore's plays are known as rabindra nritya natyas.

Stories

The "Sadhana" period, 1891–1895, was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, itself a group of eighty-four stories. They reflect upon Tagore's surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, on mind puzzles. Tagore associated his earliest stories, such as those of the "Sadhana" period, with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these traits were cultivated by zamindar Tagore’s life in villages such as Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shelaidaha. Seeing the common and the poor, he examined their lives with a depth and feeling singular in Indian literature up to that point.

In "The Fruitseller from Kabul", Tagore speaks in first person as a town dweller and novelist imputing exotic perquisites to an Afghan seller. He channels the lucubrative lust of those mired in the blasé, nidorous morass of subcontinental city life: for distant vistas. "There were autumn mornings, the time of year when kings of old went forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world. At the very name of another country, my heart would go out to it ... I would fall to weaving a network of dreams: the mountains, the glens, the forest .... ". Other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore’s Sabuj Patra period of 1914–1917; it too named for one of his magazines.

Tagore's Golpoguchchho (Bunch of Stories) ranks among the most popular pieces of Bengali fiction, and it provides much fodder for film and theatre. The Satyajit Ray film Charulata echoed Tagore's controversial novella Nastanirh (The Broken Nest). In Atithi, which was again made into a film, the young Brahmin boy Tarapada shares a boat ride with a village zamindar. The boy reveals his flight from home and his subsequent wanderings, as was his wont. Taking pity, the elder adopts him; he fixes the boy to marry his own daughter. The night before the wedding, Tarapada runs off—again. Strir Patra (The Letter from the Wife) is among Bengali literature's earliest depictions of female emancipation. Mrinal is wife to a Bengali middle class man: prissy, preening, patriarchal. Travelling alone, she writes a letter, which comprehends the story. She details the pettiness of her life with him; she refuses to return to her husband, chanting Amio bachbo. Ei bachlum: "And I shall live. Here, I live".

Haimanti assails Hindu arranged marriage and the dismal domesticity of Bengali wives, hypocrisies plaguing the Indian middle classes, and how Haimanti, a young woman, due to her sensitivity and free spirit, foredid herself. In the last passage Tagore blasts the reification of Sita's self-immolation attempt; she had meant to appease her consort Rama's doubts of her chastity. Musalmani Didi eyes recrudescent Hindu-Muslim tensions and, in many ways, embodies the essence of Tagore's humanism. Darpaharan exhibits Tagore's self-consciousness, describing a fey young man harboring literary ambitions. Though he loves his wife, he wishes to stifle her literary career, deeming it unfeminine. In youth, Tagore likely agreed with him. Darpaharan depicts the final humbling of the man as he ultimately acknowledges his wife's talents. As do many other Tagore stories, Jibito o Mrito equips Bengalis with a ubiquitous epigram: Kadombini moriya proman korilo she more nai—"Kadombini died, thereby proving that she hadn't."

Poetry

Tagore's poetic style ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic, yet proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets. His ken was the ancestral mysticism of the rishi-authors of the Upanishads à la Vyasa, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's poetry became most innovative and mature after his exposure to rural Bengal's folk music, which included Baul ballads—especially those of the bard Lalon. These—rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore—resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasize inward divinity and rebellion against religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical quality, speaking via the maner manus (the Bāuls' "man within the heart") or meditating upon the jivan devata ("living God within"). This figure thus sought connection with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems—chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance—which were repeatedly revised over seventy years.

Tagore responded to the somewhat bastardised uptake of modernist and realist techniques in Bengali literature by writing matching experimental works in the 1930s. These include Africa and Camalia, among the better known of his latter poems. He occasionally wrote poems using Shadhu Bhasha, a Sanskritised dialect of Bengali; he later adopted a more popular dialect known as Cholti Bhasha. Other works include Manasi, Sonar Tori (Golden Boat), Balaka (Wild Geese—the title being a metaphor for migrating souls), and Purobi. Sonar Tori's most famous poem, dealing with the fleeting vitality of life and achievement, goes by the same name; hauntingly it ends: "শূন্য নদীর তীরে রহিনু পড়ি / যাহা ছিল লয়ে গেল সোনার তরী" ("Shunno nodir tire rohinu poŗi / Jaha chhilo loe gêlo shonar tori"—"all I had achieved was carried off on the golden boat—only I was left behind."). Internationally, Gitanjali (গীতাঞ্জলি) is Tagore's best-known collection, winning him his Nobel. Song VII (গীতাঞ্জলি 127) of Gitanjali:

Free-verse translation by Tagore (Gitanjali, verse VII):

"Klanti" (Template:Lang-bn; "Fatigue"), the sixth poem in Gitanjali:

Tagore's poetry has been set to music by composers: Arthur Shepherd's triptych for soprano and string quartet, Alexander Zemlinsky's famous Lyric Symphony, Josef Bohuslav Foerster's cycle of love songs, Leoš Janáček's famous chorus "Potulný šílenec" ("The Wandering Madman") for soprano, tenor, baritone, and male chorus—JW 4/43—inspired by Tagore's 1922 lecture in Czechoslovakia which Janáček attended, and Garry Schyman's "Praan", an adaptation of Tagore's poem "Stream of Life" from Gitanjali. The latter was composed and recorded with vocals by Palbasha Siddique to accompany Internet celebrity Matt Harding's 2008 viral video. In 1917 his words were translated adeptly and set to music by Anglo-Dutch composer Richard Hageman to produce what is regarded as one of the finest art songs in the English language: "Do Not Go, My Love". The second movement of Jonathan Harvey's "One Evening" (1994) sets an excerpt beginning "As I was watching the sunrise..." from a letter of Tagore's, this composer having previously chosen a text by the poet for his piece "Song Offerings" (1985).

Politics

Tagore's political thought was tortured. Foremost, he opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists. His views have their first poetic release in Manast, mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement as brahminising barbermongering; he denounced it in "The Cult of the Charka", an acrid 1925 essay. He exhorted the masses to eschew victimological foppery and hew instead to self-help and mental uplift; he attributed the congenital presence of British grifters to a condign "political symptom of our social disease". He held that even for Indians at a loose end "there can be no question of blind revolution"; he would that they took to a "steady and purposeful education".

So I repeat we can never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.

Such views enraged many. He escaped a ghastly assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed only because the would-be assassins fell into argument. Yet Tagore wrote songs lionizing the Indian independence movement and renounced his knighthood. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Given to sedulously reviling Gandhi's senescent brand of abstemious militancy, Tagore was yet key in resolving a Gandhi-Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables and thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".

Tagore lauded rote classroom schooling as puerile pedagogy imparting a reliably simian sagacity: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed—to death—textbook pages. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore used a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize moneys, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.

Impact

Tagore's relevance can be gauged by the honours paid him: Kabipranam, Tagore's birth anniversary; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois; grueling Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Calcutta to Shantiniketan; austere recitals of Tagore's poetry held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen scantly deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali source—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".

Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.

Tagore was famed throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal.

Via translations Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral, Mexican writer Octavio Paz, and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. Between 1914 and 1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí spouses translated twenty-two of Tagore's books from English into Spanish and extensively revised and adapted such works as Tagore's The Crescent Moon. In this time, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have ... Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who ... pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.

Tagore was deemed overrated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Yet vestigial Latin reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.

Corpus

The SNLTR hosts Tagore's complete Bengali works, as does Tagore Web, including annotated songs. English translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.

— Bengali —

— English —

— Translations —

Notes

•  α: Bengali:
  pronounced [ɾobind̪ɾonat̪ʰ ʈʰakuɾ] ; Hindi: [rəʋiːnd̪rəˈnaːt̪ʰ ʈʰaːˈkʊr] .
•  β: Romanized from Bengali script:
  Robindronath Ţhakur.
•  γ: Bengali calendar: 25 Baishakh, 1268 – 22 Srabon, 1348 (২৫শে বৈশাখ, ১২৬৮ – ২২শে শ্রাবণ, ১৩৪৮ বঙ্গাব্দ).
  
•  δ: Gurudev translates as "divine mentor".
  
•  ε: Tagore was born at No. 6 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko—the address of the main mansion (the Jorasanko Thakurbari) inhabited by the Jorasanko branch of the Tagore clan, which had earlier suffered an acrimonious split. Jorasanko was located in the Bengali section of Calcutta, near Chitpur Road.
  
•  ζ: ... and wholly fictive ...
  
•  η: Etymology of "Visva-Bharati": from the Sanskrit for "world" or "universe" and the name of a Rigvedic goddess ("Bharati") associated with Saraswati, the Hindu patron of learning. "Visva-Bharati" also translates as "India in the World".
  
•  θ: Tagore was no stranger to controversy: his dealings with Indian nationalists Subhas Chandra Bose and Rash Behari Bose, his yen for Soviet Communism, and papers confiscated from Indian nationalists in New York allegedly implicating Tagore in a plot to overthrow the Raj via German funds. These destroyed Tagore's image—and book sales—in the United States. His relations with and ambivalent opinion of Mussolini revolted many; close friend Romain Rolland despaired that "e is abdicating his role as moral guide of the independent spirits of Europe and India".
  
•  ι: On the "idea of the humanity of our God, or the divinity of Man the Eternal".
  

Citations

1. The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913, The Nobel Foundation, retrieved 14 August 2009
2. O'Connell, K. M. (2008), "Red Oleanders (Raktakarabi) by Rabindranath Tagore—A New Translation and Adaptation: Two Reviews", Parabaas, retrieved 29 November 2009
3. Sen, A., "Tagore and His India", The Nobel Foundation, retrieved 30 August 2011
4. Datta, P. K. (2003), "Introduction", Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World: A Critical Companion, Orient Longman, p. 2, ISBN 81-7824-046-7
5. Kripalani, K. (1971), "Ancestry", Tagore: A Life, Orient Longman, pp. 2–3, ISBN 8-1237-1959-0
6. Kripalani, K. (1980), Dwarkanath Tagore (1st ed.), pp. 6, 8, arXiv:2002, ISBN 81-237-3488-3 {{citation}}: Check |arxiv= value (help)
7. Thompson 1926, p. 12. sfn error: no target: CITEREFThompson1926 (help)
8. Some Songs and Poems from Rabindranath Tagore, East-West Publications, 1984, p. xii, ISBN 0-8569-2055-X
9. Thompson 1926, p. 27–28. sfn error: no target: CITEREFThompson1926 (help)
10. Dasgupta, T. (1993), Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis, Abhinav Publications, p. 20, ISBN 81-7017-302-7
11. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 37. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
12. ^ Thompson 1926, p. 20. sfn error: no target: CITEREFThompson1926 (help)
13. Thompson 1926, p. 21–24. sfn error: no target: CITEREFThompson1926 (help)
14. Das, S. (2 August 2009), Tagore’s Garden of Eden, retrieved 14 August 2009, the garden in Panihati where the child Rabindranath along with his family had sought refuge for some time during a dengue epidemic. That was the first time that the 12-year-old poet had ever left his Chitpur home to come face-to-face with nature and greenery in a Bengal village.
15. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 55–56. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
16. Stewart & Twichell 2003, p. 91. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStewartTwichell2003 (help)
17. Stewart & Twichell 2003, p. 3. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStewartTwichell2003 (help)
18. ^ Chakravarty 1961, p. 45. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
19. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 265. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
20. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 68. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
21. Thompson 1926, p. 31. sfn error: no target: CITEREFThompson1926 (help)
22. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 11–12. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
23. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 373. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
24. Scott 2009, p. 10.
25. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 109–111. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
26. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 109. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
27. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 133. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
28. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 139–140. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
29. Hjärne, H. (10 December 1913), The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913: Presentation Speech, The Nobel Foundation, retrieved 13 August 2009, Tagore's Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), a collection of religious poems, was the one of his works that especially arrested the attention of the selecting critics.
30. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 239–240. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
31. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 242. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
32. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 308–309. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
33. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 303. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
34. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 309. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
35. ^ Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 317. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
36. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 312–313. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
37. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 335–338. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
38. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 342. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
39. ^ "Chitra". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
40. "Tagore, Rabindranath", Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, retrieved 13 August 2009
41. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 338. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
42. "Recitation of Tagore's poetry of death", Hindustan Times, Indo-Asian News Service, 2005
43. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 367. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
44. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 363. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
45. "68th Death Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore", The Daily Star, Dhaka, 7 August 2009, retrieved 13 August 2009
46. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 374–376. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
47. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 178–179. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
48. ^ "History of the Tagore Festival", Tagore Festival Committee, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: College of Business, retrieved 29 November 2009
49. Chakravarty 1961, p. 1–2. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
50. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 206. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
51. Hogan, P. C.; Pandit, L. (2003), Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, pp. 56–58, ISBN 0-8386-3980-1
52. Chakravarty 1961, p. 182. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
53. Tagore, R. (1930), The Religion of Man, pp. 222–225
54. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 253. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
55. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 256. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
56. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 267. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
57. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 270–271. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
58. ^ Kundu, K. (2009), "Mussolini and Tagore", Parabaas, retrieved 7 August 2011 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |day= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help) Cite error: The named reference "Kundu_2009" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
59. Chakravarty 1961, p. 1. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
60. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 289–292. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
61. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 303–304. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
62. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 292–293. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
63. Chakravarty 1961, p. 2. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
64. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 315. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
65. Tagore and Einstein—A Conversation, South Asian Women's Forum, 19 March 2001, retrieved 27 April 2011
66. Chakravarty 1961, p. 99. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
67. Chakravarty 1961, p. 100–103. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
68. Dyson, K. K. (15 July 2001), "Rabindranath Tagore and his World of Colours", Parabaas, retrieved 26 November 2009
69. Pandey, J. M. (8 August 2011), Original Rabindranath Tagore scripts in print soon, retrieved 1 September 2011 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |publication= ignored (help)
70. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 192–194. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
71. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 154–155. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
72. Mukherjee, M. (25 March 2004), "Yogayog (Nexus) by Rabindranath Tagore: A Book Review", Parabaas, retrieved 13 August 2009
73. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 94. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
74. ^ Dasgupta, A. (2001), "Rabindra-Sangeet As A Resource For Indian Classical Bandishes", Parabaas, retrieved 13 August 2009 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |day= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
75. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 359. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
76. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 222. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
77. Dyson 2001.
78. Lago, M. (1976), Rabindranath Tagore, Twayne's World Authors Series, vol. 402, Twayne Publishers, p. 15, ISBN 0-8057-6242-6
79. ^ Chakravarty 1961, p. 123. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
80. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 79–80. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
81. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 21–23. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
82. Chakravarty 1961, p. 123–124. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
83. Chakravarty 1961, p. 124. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
84. Chakravarty 1961, p. 45–46. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
85. Chakravarty 1961, p. 48–49. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
86. Roy 1977, p. 201. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRoy1977 (help)
87. Stewart & Twichell 2003, p. 94. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStewartTwichell2003 (help)
88. Urban 2001, p. 18. sfn error: no target: CITEREFUrban2001 (help)
89. Urban 2001, p. 6–7. sfn error: no target: CITEREFUrban2001 (help)
90. Urban 2001, p. 16. sfn error: no target: CITEREFUrban2001 (help)
91. Stewart & Twichell 2003, p. 95. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStewartTwichell2003 (help)
92. Stewart & Twichell 2003, p. 7. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStewartTwichell2003 (help)
93. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 281. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
94. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 192. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
95. Stewart & Twichell 2003, p. 95–96. sfn error: no target: CITEREFStewartTwichell2003 (help)
96. Tagore 1977, p. 5. sfn error: no target: CITEREFTagore1977 (help)
97. Harding, M. (20 June 2008), Where the Hell is Matt?, YouTube, retrieved 26 November 2009
98. Harvey, J. (1999), In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music, University of California Press, pp. 59, 90, Works published after 1977
99. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 127. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
100. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 210. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
101. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 304. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
102. Scott, J. (2009), Bengali Flower, p. 10, ISBN 1-4486-3931-X, In 1890 Tagore wrote Manast, a collection of poems that contains some of his best known poetry. The book has innovations in Bengali forms of poetry, as well as Tagore's first social and political poems. He published several books of poetry while in his 20s.
103. Brown 1948, p. 306. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrown1948 (help)
104. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 261. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
105. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 239-240. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
106. Chakravarty 1961, p. 181. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
107. Tagore, R. (1914), Sādhanā: The Realisation of Life, Macmillan, p. 111
108. ^ Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 204. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
109. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 215-216. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
110. Chakraborty, S. K.; Bhattacharya, P. (2001), Leadership and Power: Ethical Explorations, Oxford University Press, p. 157, ISBN 0-1956-5591-5
111. Mehta, S. (23 August 1999). "The first Asian Nobel laureate". Time. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
112. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 306-307. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
113. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 339. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
114. Dutta & Robinson 1997, p. 267. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1997 (help)
115. Tagore, R.; Pal, P. B. (translator) (1 December 2004), "The Parrot's Tale", Parabaas, retrieved 29 November 2009, The King felt the bird. It didn't open its mouth and didn't utter a word. Only the pages of books, stuffed inside its stomach, raised a ruffling sound. {{citation}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
116. ^ Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 220. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
117. Roy 1977, p. 175. sfn error: no target: CITEREFRoy1977 (help)
118. Chakravarty 1961, p. 27. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChakravarty1961 (help)
119. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 221. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
120. Chakrabarti, I. (15 July 2001), "A People's Poet or a Literary Deity", Parabaas, retrieved 13 August 2009
121. Hatcher, B. A. (15 July 2001), "Aji Hote Satabarsha Pare: What Tagore Says To Us A Century Later", Parabaas, retrieved 13 August 2009
122. Hatcher 2001.
123. Kämpchen, M. (25 July 2003), "Rabindranath Tagore In Germany", Parabaas, retrieved 13 August 2009
124. Ray, M. K. (editor) (2007), The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, vol. 1, Atlantic, p. 104 {{citation}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
125. Farrell, G. (1999), Indian Music and the West, Clarendon Paperbacks Series (3 ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 162, ISBN 0-1981-6717-2
126. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 202. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
127. Cameron, R. (31 March 2006), "Exhibition of Bengali film posters opens in Prague", Radio Prague, retrieved 13 August 2009, Lesny was the first European person to translate Rabindranath Tagore from the original into a European language, the first European or westerner ever.
128. Sen, A. (2006), The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity, Picador, p. 90, ISBN 0-3124-2602-X
129. Kinzer, S. (5 November 2006), "Bülent Ecevit, who turned Turkey toward the West, dies", The New York Times, retrieved 13 August 2009, He published several volumes of poetry and translated the works of T. S. Eliot and Rabindranath Tagore.
130. ^ Sen 1997. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSen1997 (help)
131. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 254–255. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
132. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 255. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
133. Thought Relics, Internet Sacred Text Archive, retrieved 20 March 2010
134. "Creative Unity". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
135. "The Crescent Moon". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
136. "Fruit-Gathering". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
137. "The Fugitive". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
138. "The Gardener". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
139. "Gitanjali". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
140. "Glimpses of Bengal". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
141. "The Home and the World". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 31 August 2011.
142. "The Hungry Stones". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
143. My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore – Project Gutenberg
144. "The Post Office". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
145. "Sadhana: The Realisation of Life". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
146. "Songs of Kabir". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
147. "Stray Birds". Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
148. Sil, N. P. (15 February 2005), "Devotio Humana: Rabindranath's Love Poems Revisited", Parabaas, retrieved 13 August 2009
149. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 34. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
150. ^ Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 214. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
151. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 297. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
152. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 214-215. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
153. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 212. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)
154. Dutta & Robinson 1995, p. 273. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDuttaRobinson1995 (help)

References

Articles

• Frenz, H. (editor) (1969), Rabindranath Tagore—Biography, Nobel Foundation, retrieved 30 August 2011 {{citation}}: |first1= has generic name (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Jha, N. (1994), "Rabindranath Tagore" (PDF), PROSPECTS: The Quarterly Review of Education, XXIV (3/4), Paris: UNESCO: International Bureau of Education: 603–19, retrieved 30 August 2011 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Meyer, L. (2004), "Tagore in The Netherlands", Parabaas, retrieved 30 August 2011 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Radice, W. (2003), "Tagore's Poetic Greatness", Parabaas, retrieved 30 August 2011 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Robinson, A., "Rabindranath Tagore", Encyclopædia Britannica, retrieved 30 August 2011 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Sen, A. (1997), "Tagore and His India", New York Review of Books, retrieved 30 August 2011 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

Books

• Brown, G. (1948), "The Hindu Conspiracy: 1914–1917", The Pacific Historical Review, 17 (3), University of California Press: 299–310, ISSN 0030-8684 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Chakravarty, A. (editor) (1961), A Tagore Reader, Beacon Press, ISBN 978-0807059715 {{citation}}: |first1= has generic name (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Dutta, K.; Robinson, A. (1995), Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man, Saint Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-14030-4 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |last2= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Dutta, K. (editor); Robinson, A. (editor) (1997), Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology, Saint Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-16973-6 {{citation}}: |first1= has generic name (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |last2= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Roy, B. K. (1977), Rabindranath Tagore: The Man and His Poetry, Folcroft Library Editions, ISBN 0-8414-7330-7 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Stewart, T. (editor, translator); Twichell, C. (editor, translator) (2003), Rabindranath Tagore: Lover of God, Copper Canyon Press, ISBN 1-55659-196-9 {{citation}}: |first1= has generic name (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |last2= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Tagore, R. (1977), Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore, Macmillan Publishing, ISBN 0-02-615920-1 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Thompson, E. (1926), Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist, Read, ISBN 1-4067-8927-5 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Urban, H. B. (2001), Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513901-1 {{citation}}: templatestyles stripmarker in |last1= at position 1 (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

Further reading

• Abu Zakaria, G. (editor) (2011), Rabindranath Tagore—Wanderer zwischen Welten, Klemm & Oelschläger, ISBN 978-3-86281-018-5
• Chaudhuri, A. (2004), The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature, Vintage, ISBN 0-375-71300-X
• Deutsch, A.; Robinson, A. (1989), The Art of Rabindranath Tagore, Monthly Review Press, ISBN 0-233-98359-7
• Deutsch, A. (editor); Robinson, A. (editor) (1997), Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-59018-3
• Kripalani, K. (1961), Tagore—A Life, National Book Trust of India, ISBN 81-237-1959-0
• Lago, M. (1977), Rabindranath Tagore, Twayne Publishers, Boston, ISBN 978-0805762426
• Radice, W. (1985), Selected Poems (English translation of Bengali poems), Penguin, London, ISBN 0-14-018366-3
• Som, R. (2009), Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and His Song, Viking, ISBN 978-0-670-08248-3

External links

Analyses

• "Tagore, ...", Banglapædia
• "... and his India", The New York Review of Books
• "... Current Articles", Parabaas
• "... The Founder", Visva-Bharati University

Audiobooks

• "Sadhana: ...", LibriVox

Complete Works

• ... A new site dedicated to his works
• ... The complete collection of his works

Talks

• ... with Albert Einstein and H. G. Wells, School of Wisdom

Texts

• ... at Project Gutenberg
• ... at Tagore Web
• ... at Wikilivres

Sources

• Mary Lago Collection, University of Missouri

v t e Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature
1901–1920	1901: Sully Prudhomme 1902: Theodor Mommsen 1903: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1904: Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz 1906: Giosuè Carducci 1907: Rudyard Kipling 1908: Rudolf Eucken 1909: Selma Lagerlöf 1910: Paul Heyse 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann 1913: Rabindranath Tagore 1914 1915: Romain Rolland 1916: Verner von Heidenstam 1917: Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan 1918 1919: Carl Spitteler 1920: Knut Hamsun
1921–1940	1921: Anatole France 1922: Jacinto Benavente 1923: W. B. Yeats 1924: Władysław Reymont 1925: George Bernard Shaw 1926: Grazia Deledda 1927: Henri Bergson 1928: Sigrid Undset 1929: Thomas Mann 1930: Sinclair Lewis 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (posthumously) 1932: John Galsworthy 1933: Ivan Bunin 1934: Luigi Pirandello 1935 1936: Eugene O'Neill 1937: Roger Martin du Gard 1938: Pearl S. Buck 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää 1940
1941–1960	1941 1942 1943 1944: Johannes V. Jensen 1945: Gabriela Mistral 1946: Hermann Hesse 1947: André Gide 1948: T. S. Eliot 1949: William Faulkner 1950: Bertrand Russell 1951: Pär Lagerkvist 1952: François Mauriac 1953: Winston Churchill 1954: Ernest Hemingway 1955: Halldór Laxness 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez 1957: Albert Camus 1958: Boris Pasternak 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo 1960: Saint-John Perse
1961–1980	1961: Ivo Andrić 1962: John Steinbeck 1963: Giorgos Seferis 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined award) 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov 1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs 1967: Miguel Ángel Asturias 1968: Yasunari Kawabata 1969: Samuel Beckett 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1971: Pablo Neruda 1972: Heinrich Böll 1973: Patrick White 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson 1975: Eugenio Montale 1976: Saul Bellow 1977: Vicente Aleixandre 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer 1979: Odysseas Elytis 1980: Czesław Miłosz
1981–2000	1981: Elias Canetti 1982: Gabriel García Márquez 1983: William Golding 1984: Jaroslav Seifert 1985: Claude Simon 1986: Wole Soyinka 1987: Joseph Brodsky 1988: Naguib Mahfouz 1989: Camilo José Cela 1990: Octavio Paz 1991: Nadine Gordimer 1992: Derek Walcott 1993: Toni Morrison 1994: Kenzaburō Ōe 1995: Seamus Heaney 1996: Wisława Szymborska 1997: Dario Fo 1998: José Saramago 1999: Günter Grass 2000: Gao Xingjian
2001–2020	2001: V. S. Naipaul 2002: Imre Kertész 2003: J. M. Coetzee 2004: Elfriede Jelinek 2005: Harold Pinter 2006: Orhan Pamuk 2007: Doris Lessing 2008: J. M. G. Le Clézio 2009: Herta Müller 2010: Mario Vargas Llosa 2011: Tomas Tranströmer 2012: Mo Yan 2013: Alice Munro 2014: Patrick Modiano 2015: Svetlana Alexievich 2016: Bob Dylan 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro 2018: Olga Tokarczuk 2019: Peter Handke 2020: Louise Glück
2021–present	2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah 2022: Annie Ernaux 2023: Jon Fosse 2024: Han Kang

Template:Persondata

Template:Link FA

• Rabindranath Tagore
• 1861 births
• 1941 deaths
• Alumni of Presidency University, Kolkata
• Alumni of University College London
• Bengali Nobel laureates
• Bengali writers
• Bengali zamindars
• Brahmos
• Contemporary Indian philosophers
• Founders of Indian schools and colleges
• Hindu mystics
• Hindu revivalists
• Hindu–German Conspiracy
• Indian artists
• Indian Nobel laureates
• Indian painters
• Indian poets
• National anthem writers
• Nobel laureates in Literature
• People associated with Santiniketan
• People associated with the Bengal Renaissance
• Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
• University of Calcutta alumni
• University of Calcutta faculty