Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore The Gitanjali or `song offerings' by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941),Nobel prize for literature 1913,with an introduction by William B. Yeats (1865-1939),Nobel prize for literature 1923.First published in 1913.This work is in public domain according to the Berne conventionsince January 1st 1992.RABINDRANATH TAGOREGITANJALISong OfferingsA collection of prose translationsmade by the author fromthe original BengaliWith an introduction byW. YEATSto WILLIAM ROTHENSTEININTRODUCTIONA few days ago I said to a distinguished Bengali doctor ofmedicine, `I know no German, yet if a translation of a German poet hadmoved me, I would go to the British Museum and find books in Englishthat would tell me something of his life, and of the history of histhought.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath. And in spite of its title, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them,. Rabindranath Tagore was the fourteenth child of his parents Dwarkanath Tagore and Sharada Devi. He was born on May 7, 1861 in the ancestral mansion, Jorasanko in Central Calcutta. As a child, he had to remain under the supervision of house servants because he could not get close to her mother who was in charge of a large family.
But though these prose translations from Rabindranath Tagorehave stirred my blood as nothing has for years, I shall not knowanything of his life, and of the movements of thought that have madethem possible, if some Indian traveller will not tell me.' It seemedto him natural that I should be moved, for he said, `I readRabindranath every day, to read one line of his is to forget all thetroubles of the world.' I said, `An Englishman living in London in thereign of Richard the Second had he been shown translations fromPetrarch or from Dante, would have found no books to answer hisquestions, but would have questioned some Florentine banker or Lombardmerchant as I question you. For all I know, so abundant and simple isthis poetry, the new renaissance has been born in your country and Ishall never know of it except by hearsay.' He answered, `We have otherpoets, but none that are his equal; we call this the epoch ofRabindranath. No poet seems to me as famous in Europe as he is amongus. He is as great in music as in poetry, and his songs are sung fromthe west of India into Burma wherever Bengali is spoken.
He wasalready famous at nineteen when he wrote his first novel; and playswhen he was but little older, are still played in Calcutta. I so muchadmire the completeness of his life; when he was very young he wrotemuch of natural objects, he would sit all day in his garden; from histwenty-fifth year or so to his thirty-fifth perhaps, when he had agreat sorrow, he wrote the most beautiful love poetry in ourlanguage'; and then he said with deep emotion, `words can neverexpress what I owed at seventeen to his love poetry. After that hisart grew deeper, it became religious and philosophical; all theinspiration of mankind are in his hymns. He is the first among oursaints who has not refused to live, but has spoken out of Lifeitself, and that is why we give him our love.' I may have changed hiswell-chosen words in my memory but not his thought.
`A little whileago he was to read divine service in one of our churches-we of theBrahma Samaj use your word `church' in English-it was the largest inCalcutta and not only was it crowded, but the streets were all butimpassable because of the people.' Other Indians came to see me and their reverence for this man soundedstrange in our world, where we hide great and little things under thesame veil of obvious comedy and half-serious depreciation. When wewere making the cathedrals had we a like reverence for our great men?`Every morning at three-I know, for I have seen it'-one said tome, `he sits immovable in contemplation, and for two hours does notawake from his reverie upon the nature of God. His father, the MahaRishi, would sometimes sit there all through the next day; once, upona river, he fell into contemplation because of the beauty of thelandscape, and the rowers waited for eight hours before they couldcontinue their journey.' He then told me of Mr. Tagore's family andhow for generations great men have come out of its cradles. `Today,'he said, `there are Gogonendranath and Abanindranath Tagore, who areartists; and Dwijendranath, Rabindranath's brother, who is a greatphilosopher.
The squirrels come from the boughs and climb on to hisknees and the birds alight upon his hands.' I notice in these men'sthought a sense of visible beauty and meaning as though they heldthat doctrine of Nietzsche that we must not believe in the moral orintellectual beauty which does not sooner or later impress itself uponphysical things.
I said, `In the East you know how to keep a familyillustrious. The other day the curator of a museum pointed out to me alittle dark-skinned man who was arranging their Chinese prints andsaid, ``That is the hereditary connoisseur of the Mikado, he is thefourteenth of his family to hold the post.' ' 'He answered,`When Rabindranath was a boy he had all round him in his homeliterature and music.' I thought of the abundance, of the simplicityof the poems, and said, `In your country is there much propagandistwriting, much criticism? We have to do so much, especially in my owncountry, that our minds gradually cease to be creative, and yet wecannot help it. If our life was not a continual warfare, we would nothave taste, we would not know what is good, we would not find hearersand readers. Four-fifths of our energy is spent in the quarrel withbad taste, whether in our own minds or in the minds of others.'
`Iunderstand,' he replied, `we too have our propagandist writing. In thevillages they recite long mythological poems adapted from the Sanskritin the Middle Ages, and they often insert passages telling the peoplethat they must do their duties.'
I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me fordays, reading it in railway trains, or on the top of omnibuses and inrestaurants, and I have often had to close it lest some stranger wouldsee how much it moved me. These lyrics-which are in the original, myIndians tell me, full of subtlety of rhythm, of untranslatabledelicacies of colour, of metrical invention-display in their thoughta world I have dreamed of all my live long. The work of a supremeculture, they yet appear as much the growth of the common soil as thegrass and the rushes. A tradition, where poetry and religion are thesame thing, has passed through the centuries, gathering from learnedand unlearned metaphor and emotion, and carried back again to themultitude the thought of the scholar and of the noble. If thecivilization of Bengal remains unbroken, if that common mindwhich-as one divines-runs through all, is not, as with us, brokeninto a dozen minds that know nothing of each other, something even ofwhat is most subtle in these verses will have come, in a fewgenerations, to the beggar on the roads. When there was but one mindin England, Chaucer wrote his Troilus and Cressida, and thoughthe had written to be read, or to be read out-for our time wascoming on apace-he was sung by minstrels for a while. RabindranathTagore, like Chaucer's forerunners, writes music for his words, andone understands at every moment that he is so abundant, sospontaneous, so daring in his passion, so full of surprise, because heis doing something which has never seemed strange, unnatural, or inneed of defence.
These verses will not lie in little well-printedbooks upon ladies' tables, who turn the pages with indolent hands thatthey may sigh over a life without meaning, which is yet all they canknow of life, or be carried by students at the university to be laidaside when the work of life begins, but, as the generations pass,travellers will hum them on the highway and men rowing upon therivers. Lovers, while they await one another, shall find, in murmuringthem, this love of God a magic gulf wherein their own more bitterpassion may bathe and renew its youth.
At every moment the heart ofthis poet flows outward to these without derogation or condescension,for it has known that they will understand; and it has filled itselfwith the circumstance of their lives. The traveller in the read-brownclothes that he wears that dust may not show upon him, the girlsearching in her bed for the petals fallen from the wreath of herroyal lover, the servant or the bride awaiting the master'shome-coming in the empty house, are images of the heart turning toGod. Flowers and rivers, the blowing of conch shells, the heavy rainof the Indian July, or the moods of that heart in union or inseparation; and a man sitting in a boat upon a river playing lute,like one of those figures full of mysterious meaning in a Chinesepicture, is God Himself. A whole people, a whole civilization,immeasurably strange to us, seems to have been taken up into thisimagination; and yet we are not moved because of its strangeness, butbecause we have met our own image, as though we had walked inRossetti's willow wood, or heard, perhaps for the first time inliterature, our voice as in a dream.Since the Renaissance the writing of European saints-howeverfamiliar their metaphor and the general structure of theirthought-has ceased to hold our attention.
We know that we must atlast forsake the world, and we are accustomed in moments of wearinessor exaltation to consider a voluntary forsaking; but how can we, whohave read so much poetry, seen so many paintings, listened to so muchmusic, where the cry of the flesh and the cry of the soul seems one,forsake it harshly and rudely? What have we in common with St.
Bernardcovering his eyes that they may not dwell upon the beauty of the lakesof Switzerland, or with the violent rhetoric of the Book ofRevelations? We would, if we might, find, as in this book, words fullof courtesy.
`I have got my leave. Bid me farewell, my brothers! I bowto you all and take my departure.
Here I give back the keys of mydoor-and I give up all claims to my house. I only ask for last kindwords from you. We were neighbours for long, but I received more thanI could give. Now the day has dawned and the lamp that lit my darkcorner is out.
A summons has come and I am ready for my journey.' Andit is our own mood, when it is furthest from `a Kempis or John of theCross, that cries, `And because I love this life, I know I shall lovedeath as well.' Yet it is not only in our thoughts of the parting thatthis book fathoms all.
We had not known that we loved God, hardly itmay be that we believed in Him; yet looking backward upon our life wediscover, in our exploration of the pathways of woods, in our delightin the lonely places of hills, in that mysterious claim that we havemade, unavailingly on the woman that we have loved, the emotion thatcreated this insidious sweetness. `Entering my heart unbidden even asone of the common crowd, unknown to me, my king, thou didst press thesignet of eternity upon many a fleeting moment.' This is no longer thesanctity of the cell and of the scourge; being but a lifting up, as itwere, into a greater intensity of the mood of the painter, paintingthe dust and the sunlight, and we go for a like voice to St. Francisand to William Blake who have seemed so alien in our violent history.We write long books where no page perhaps has any quality to makewriting a pleasure, being confident in some general design, just as wefight and make money and fill our heads with politics-all dullthings in the doing-while Mr. Tagore, like the Indian civilizationitself, has been content to discover the soul and surrender himself toits spontaneity. He often seems to contrast life with that of thosewho have loved more after our fashion, and have more seeming weight inthe world, and always humbly as though he were only sure his way isbest for him: `Men going home glance at me and smile and fill me withshame. I sit like a beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, andwhen they ask me, what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer themnot.'
At another time, remembering how his life had once a differentshape, he will say, `Many an hour I have spent in the strife of thegood and the evil, but now it is the pleasure of my playmate of theempty days to draw my heart on to him; and I know not why this suddencall to what useless inconsequence.' An innocence, a simplicity thatone does not find elsewhere in literature makes the birds and theleaves seem as near to him as they are near to children, and thechanges of the seasons great events as before our thoughts had arisenbetween them and us. At times I wonder if he has it from theliterature of Bengal or from religion, and at other times, rememberingthe birds alighting on his brother's hands, I find pleasure in thinkingit hereditary, a mystery that was growing through the centuries likethe courtesy of a Tristan or a Pelanore. Indeed, when he is speakingof children, so much a part of himself this quality seems, one is notcertain that he is not also speaking of the saints, `They build theirhouses with sand and they play with empty shells.
With withered leavesthey weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep.Children have their play on the seashore of worlds. They know not howto swim, they know not how to cast nets.
Pearl fishers dive forpearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebblesand scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they knownot how to cast nets.' YEATSSeptember 1912GITANJALIThou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure.
Locations of places associated with Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore ( ( ); born Robindronath Thakur, 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), and also known by his Gurudev, Kabiguru, and Biswakabi, was a, poet, musician, and artist from the. He reshaped and, as well as with in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the 'profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse' of, he became in 1913 the first non-European to win the. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his 'elegant prose and magical poetry' remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as 'the of Bengal'.A from with ancestral roots in, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.
At the age of sixteen, he released under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ('Sun Lion'), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a, and ardent, he denounced the and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in the institution he founded,.Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. ( Song Offerings), ( Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire ( ) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's and 's.
The was inspired by his work. Contents.Family historyThe original surname of the Tagores were Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named in. Rabindra-biographer wrote in the second page of the first volume of his book named 'Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshika' that, 'The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in zilla) by Maharaja, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.' Early life: 1861–1878.
The last two days a storm has been raging, similar to the description in my song— Jhauro jhauro borishe baridhara. Amidst it a hapless, homeless man drenched from top to toe standing on the roof of his steamer.
the last two days I have been singing this song over and over. as a result the pelting sound of the intense rain, the wail of the wind, the sound of the heaving Gorai River, have assumed a fresh life and found a new language and I have felt like a major actor in this new musical drama unfolding before me.— Letter to.
Tagore and his wife Mrinalini Devi, 1883Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The was at the forefront of the.
They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional musicians to stay in the house and teach to the children. Tagore's oldest brother was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European. Yet another brother, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence.
Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby and, which the family visited. His brother tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject.
Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:After his (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's estate and before reaching the of. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and, and examined the classical poetry of.
During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912)The golden temple of Amritsar comes back to me like a dream.
Many a morning have I accompanied my father to this Gurudarbar of the Sikhs in the middle of the lake. There the sacred chanting resounds continually. My father, seated amidst the throng of worshippers, would sometimes add his voice to the hymn of praise, and finding a stranger joining in their devotions they would wax enthusiastically cordial, and we would return loaded with the sanctified offerings of sugar crystals and other sweets.He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali child magazine about Sikhism.Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the style of. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with ' ('The Beggar Woman').
Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem 'Nirjharer Swapnabhanga' ('The Rousing of the Waterfall').Shelaidaha: 1878–1901. Tagore's house in,Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near and, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and, the children of Tagore's brother —were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of, and and the of.
Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of -authored and and hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
Tagore family boat (bajra or ), the 'Padma'.In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work.
As Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as '). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met, through whom he became familiar with, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal. Santiniketan: 1901–1932.
1924In 1901 Tagore moved to to found an with a marble-floored prayer hall— The —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, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's: the appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919. Last picture of Rabindranath, 1941Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a 'peripatetic '. It 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 scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck.
That year, hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed 's film. 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— (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.—Verse 292, Stray Birds, 1916.Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays.
His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. 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, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. 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. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything—some love, some forgiveness—then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end.Travels.
Main article: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 the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with 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 ( ). His brief chat with, '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. In 2011, collaborated with to publish, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth. Tagore performing the title role in Valmiki Pratibha (1881) with his niece as the goddess.Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate 'the play of feeling and not of action'. In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues.
Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play ( The Post Office'; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately 'falling asleep', hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning 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'. Another is Tagore's Chandalika ( Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how, the 's disciple, asks a girl for water. In Raktakarabi ('Red' or 'Blood Oleanders') is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of.Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as.Short stories. Cover of the magazine, edited byTagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with 'Bhikharini' ('The Beggar Woman'). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre.
The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's 'Sadhana' period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories.
Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the ' Sadhana' period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Shajadpur, and while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as ' ('The Fruitseller from ', published in 1892), 'Kshudita Pashan' ('The Hungry Stones') (August 1895), and 'Atithi' ('The Runaway', 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden.
Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to. NovelsTagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire ( )—through the lens of the idealistic protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from 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 ( ), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle.
In it an Irish boy orphaned in the is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—'whitey'. Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a 'true dialectic' advancing 'arguments for and against strict traditionalism', it tackles the colonial conundrum by 'portraying the value of all positions within a particular frame. not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share.'
Among these Tagore highlights 'identity. conceived of as.' In ( Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of -, exemplified by —is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband.
Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. 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 had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.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 a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: 'Rabindranath Tagore'. Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: and are exemplary.
In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: 'I have always regretted the ending'. Part of a poem written by Tagore in, 1926.Internationally, Gitanjali (: গীতাঞ্জলি) is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the in 1913.
Tagore was the second non-European after to receive a Nobel Prize.Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ('Golden Boat'), Balaka ('Wild Geese' — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of and other rishi-authors of the, the - mystic,. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic ballads such as those of the bard.
These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' 'man within the heart' and Tagore's 'life force of his deep recesses', or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the 'living God within'. This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the - romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal — many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style — Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity.
Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as ('Tagore Song'), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the style of, 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 colour of classical to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with 'fresh value' from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours 'external' to Tagore's own ancestral culture.In 1971, became the national anthem of. It was written — ironically — to protest the along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath.
Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Was written in, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.The was inspired by his work.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 'there 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'. Tagore influenced sitar maestro and Buddhadev Dasgupta. Tagore's Bengali-language initials are worked into this 'Ro-Tho' (of RAbindranath THAkur) wooden seal, stylistically similar to designs used in traditional from the region of North America. Tagore often embellished his manuscripts with such art.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, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced numerous styles, including by the people of northern, from the region of North America, and woodcuts by the German. 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. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.Surrounded by several painters Rabindranath had always wanted to paint. Writing and music, playwriting and acting came to him naturally and almost without training, as it did to several others in his family, and in even greater measure. But painting eluded him. Yet he tried repeatedly to master the art and there are several references to this in his early letters and reminiscence.
In 1900 for instance, when he was nearing forty and already a celebrated writer, he wrote to Jagadishchandra Bose, 'You will be surprised to hear that I am sitting with a sketchbook drawing. Needless to say, the pictures are not intended for any salon in Paris, they cause me not the least suspicion that the national gallery of any country will suddenly decide to raise taxes to acquire them. But, just as a mother lavishes most affection on her ugliest son, so I feel secretly drawn to the very skill that comes to me least easily.' He also realized that he was using the eraser more than the pencil, and dissatisfied with the results he finally withdrew, deciding it was not for him to become a painter.Tagore also had an artist's eye for his own handwriting, embellishing the cross-outs and word layouts in his manuscripts with simple artistic.India's lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections. Tagore hosts Gandhi and wife Kasturba at Santiniketan in 1940Tagore opposed and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister and former Premier. Yet he lampooned the; he rebuked it in, an acrid 1925 essay.
He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a 'political symptom of our social disease'. He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, 'there can be no question of blind revolution'; preferable to it was a 'steady and purposeful education'. So I repeat we 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.— Sādhanā: The Realisation of Life, 1916.Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument.
Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, ' ('Where the Mind is Without Fear') and ' ('If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone'), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi.
Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi– dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts 'unto death'. Repudiation of knighthood. (Institute of Fine Arts), IndiaTagore despised rote classroom schooling: in 'The Parrot's Training', a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. 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 and a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography.' The school, which he named, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, 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. Theft of Nobel PrizeOn 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film.
In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned. Impact and legacy. Rabindranath Tagore Memorial,Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics.
Deemed Tagore a 'towering figure', a 'deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker'. Tagore's Bengali originals—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'. Dakkhindihi, Phultala, Khulna, BangladeshJorasanko Thakur Bari (: House of the (anglicised to Tagore) in, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family.
It is currently located on the campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.is located in Dakkhindihi village, near, 19 kilometres (12 mi) from city,. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury.
Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home.
Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum.
On In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 Novembar of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided.Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011-12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor.
The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there.
Every year on 25-27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.List of universities; university buildings named after him., Kolkata, India., Sahjadpur, Shirajganj, Bangladesh., India., Courtpara, Kustia,Bangladesh. Bishwakabi Rabindranath Tagore Hall, Bangladesh. Rabindra Nazrul Art Building, Arts Faculty, Bangladesh. Rabindra Library (Central), India. Rabindra Srijonkala University, Keraniganj, Dhaka, BangladeshList of works.: 25, 1268 – 22, 1348 (২৫শে বৈশাখ, ১২৬৮ – ২২শে শ্রাবণ, ১৩৪৮ বঙ্গাব্দ). Gurudev translates as 'divine mentor'. 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.
Was his paternal grandfather. Debendranath had formulated the philosophies espoused by his friend, and became focal in Brahmo society after Roy's death. On the 'idea of the humanity of our God, or the divinity of Man the Eternal'. Etymology of 'Visva-Bharati': from the Sanskrit for 'world' or 'universe' and the name of a Rigvedic goddess ('Bharati') associated with, the Hindu patron of learning. 'Visva-Bharati' also translates as 'India in the World'.
Tagore was no stranger to controversy: his dealings with Indian nationalists and, 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 despaired that 'he is abdicating his role as moral guide of the independent spirits of Europe and India'.Citations. ^ Nasrin, Mithun B.; Wurff, W. Van Der (2015). NobelPrize.
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