| Author | |
|---|---|
| Original title | গীতাঞ্জলি |
| Language | Bengali |
| Subject | Devotion to God |
| Genre | Poem |
Publication date | 4 August 1910; 115 years ago (1910-08-04) |
| Publication place | British India |
Published in English | 1912; 114 years ago (1912) |
| Pages | 104 |
Gitanjali (Bengali:গীতাঞ্জলি,lit. ''Song offering'') is a collection ofpoems by theBengali poetRabindranath Tagore. Tagore received theNobel Prize for Literature in 1913, for its English translation,Song Offerings, making him the first non-European and the firstAsian and the onlyIndian to receive this honour.[1]
It is part of theUNESCO Collection of Representative Works. Its central theme is devotion, and its motto is "I am here to sing thee songs" (No. XV).[2]
The collection by Tagore, originally written in Bengali, comprises 157 poems, many of which have been turned into songs orRabindra Sangeet. The originalBengali collection was published on 4 August 1910. The translated version,Gitanjali: Song Offerings, was published in November 1912 by theIndia Society of London. It contained translations of 53 poems from the originalGitanjali, as well as 50 other poems extracted from Tagore'sAchalayatan,Gitimalya,Naibedya,Kheya, and more. Overall,Gitanjali: Song Offerings consists of 103 prose poems of Tagore's own English translations.[3] The poems were based on medieval Indian lyrics of devotion with a common theme of love across most poems. Some poems also narrated a conflict between thedesire for materialistic possessions and spiritual longing.[4][5]
The English version ofGitanjali orSong Offerings/Singing Angel is a collection of 103 Englishprose poems,[6] which are Tagore's own English translations of his Bengali poems, first published in November 1912 by theIndia Society in London. It contained translations of 53 poems from the original BengaliGitanjali, as well as 50 other poems from his other works.[7] The translations were often radical, leaving out or altering large chunks of the poem and in one instance fusing two separate poems (song 95, which unifies songs 89 and 90 ofNaivedya).[8] The EnglishGitanjali became popular in the West, and was widely translated.[9]
Media related toGitanjali at Wikimedia Commons
Works related toGitanjali at Wikisource