ABengali Brahmin fromCalcutta with ancestralgentry roots inBurdwan district[12] andJessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.[13] At the age of sixteen, he releasedhis first substantial poems under the pseudonymBhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics.[14] By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As ahumanist,universalist,internationalist, and ardent critic ofnationalism,[15] he denounced theBritish Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding ofVisva-Bharati University.[16][17]
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.Gitanjali (Song Offerings),Gora (Fair-Faced) andGhare-Baire (The Home and the World) 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 "Jana Gana Mana" andBangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". TheSri Lankan national anthem was also inspired by his work.[18] His song "Banglar Mati Banglar Jol" has been adopted as the state anthem ofWest Bengal.
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration ofThakur.[19] The original surname of theTagores was Kushari. They werePirali Brahmin ('Pirali' historically carried a stigmatized and pejorative connotation)[20][21] who originally belonged to a village namedKush in the district namedBurdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore,Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his bookRabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son ofBhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (inBurdwan zilla) byMaharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.[12]
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.
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood, and his father travelled widely.[29] TheTagore family was at the forefront of theBengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professionalDhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teachIndian classical music to the children.[30] Tagore's oldest brotherDwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother,Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-EuropeanIndian Civil Service. Yet another brother,Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright.[31] His sisterSwarnakumari became a novelist.[32] Jyotirindranath's wifeKadambari Devi, 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.[33]
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearbyBolpur andPanihati, which the family visited.[34][35] His brotherHemendranath 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.[36] Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the localPresidency College spanned a single day. Years later, he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity.[37]
After hisupanayan (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'sSantiniketan estate andAmritsar before reaching theHimalayanhill station ofDalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, andSanskrit, and examined the classical poetry ofKālidāsa.[38][39] During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodiousgurbani and Nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple, for which both father and son were regular visitors. He writes in hisMy 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.[40]
He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and several articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.[41]
Poems on Guru Gobind Singh: নিষ্ফল উপহার Nishfal-upahaar (1888, translated as "Futile Gift"), গুরু গোবিন্দ Guru Gobinda (1899) and শেষ শিক্ষা Shesh Shiksha (1899, translated as "Last Teachings")[41]
Poem on Banda Bahadur: বন্দী বীর Bandi-bir (The Prisoner Warrior, written in 1888 or 1898)[41]
Poem on Bhai Torusingh: প্রার্থনাতীত দান (prarthonatit dan – Unsolicited gift) written in 1888 or 1898[41]
Poem on Nehal Singh: নীহাল সিংহ (Nihal Singh) written in 1935.[41]
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in theMaithili style ofVidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-centuryVaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha.[42] Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet.[43] He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman").[44][45] Published in the same year,Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878.[22] He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned nearBrighton andHove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren andIndira Devi, the children of Tagore's brotherSatyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him.[46] He briefly read law atUniversity College London, but again left, opting instead for independent study ofShakespeare's playsCoriolanus, andAntony and Cleopatra and theReligio Medici ofThomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition ofNidhubabu-authoredkirtans andtappas andBrahmo hymnody was subdued.[22][47] In 1880, he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each.[48] After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention.[49] In 1883, he married 10-year-old[50]Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.[51]
Tagore family boat (bajra orbudgerow), the "Padma".
In 1890, Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates inShelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released hisManasi poems (1890), among his best-known work.[52] AsZamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed thePadma River in command of thePadma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers, who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk.[53] He metGagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar withBaulLalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore.[54] Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore'sSadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive;[29] in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-storyGalpaguchchha.[44] Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.[55]
In 1901 Tagore moved toSantiniketan to found anashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—TheMandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library.[56] 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 ofTripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow inPuri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties.[57] He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he publishedNaivedya (1901) andKheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In 1912, Tagore translated his 1910 workGitanjali into English. While on a trip to London, he shared these poems with admirers, includingWilliam Butler Yeats andEzra Pound. London'sIndia Society published the work in a limited edition, and the American magazinePoetry published a selection fromGitanjali.[58] In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year'sNobel Prize in Literature: theSwedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912Gitanjali: Song Offerings.[59] He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919Jallianwala Bagh massacre.[60] Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed toLord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my countrymen."[61][62]
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia,Syed Abdul Majid to visitSylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.[63]
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economistLeonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", inSurul, a village near theashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderateGandhi'sSwaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline.[64] He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge".[65][66] In the early 1930s, he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" anduntouchability. He lectured against these, he pennedDalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to openGuruvayoor Temple to Dalits.[67][68]
Twilight years: 1932–1941
In Germany, 1931Last picture of Rabindranath, 1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripateticlitterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to aBedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "OurProphet 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."[69] To the end, Tagore scrutinized orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year,an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismickarma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications.[70] He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal and detailed this newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowedSatyajit Ray's filmApur Sansar.[71][72] Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem worksPunashcha (1932),Shes Saptak (1935), andPatraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas—Chitra (1914),Shyama (1939), andChandalika (1938)— and in his novels—Dui Bon (1933),Malancha (1934), andChar Adhyay (1934).[73]
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 inVisva-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.[74] He wove theprocess of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories inSe (1937),Tin Sangi (1940), andGalpasalpa (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.[75][76] A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80.[23] He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up.[77][78] The date is still mourned.[79] A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day before a scheduled operation: his last poem.[80]
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.
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 that dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents.[82] In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégéCharles F. Andrews, Irish poetWilliam Butler Yeats,Ezra Pound,Robert Bridges,Ernest Rhys,Thomas Sturge Moore, and others.[83] Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation ofGitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States[84] and the United Kingdom, staying inButterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends.[85] From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan[86] and the United States.[87] He denounced nationalism.[88] His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired byRomain Rolland and other pacifists.[89]
Shortly after returning home, the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledgedUS$100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits.[90] A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires,[91] an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest ofVictoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he metMussolini in Rome.[92] Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced uponIl Duce's fascist finesse.[93] He had earlier enthused: "[w]without any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigor 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".[94]
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived in Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree, and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.[95]
On 14 July 1927, Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues composeJatri (1929).[96] In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his OxfordHibbert Lectures[c] and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet.[97] There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness".[98] He visitedAga Khan III, stayed atDartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union.[99] In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mysticHafez, was hosted byReza Shah Pahlavi.[100][101] In his other travels, Tagore interacted withHenri Bergson,Albert Einstein,Robert Frost,Thomas Mann,George Bernard Shaw,H. G. Wells, andRomain Rolland.[102][103] Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike ofcommunalism and nationalism only deepened.[69] Vice-president of India M.Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct. Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."[104]
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 the 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, includingEurope Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) andManusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat withEinstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titledKalanukromik 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.[105] In 2011,Harvard University Press collaborated withVisva-Bharati University to publishThe Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited byFakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.[106]
Drama
Tagore performing the title role inValmiki Pratibha (1881) with his nieceIndira Devi as the goddessLakshmi
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brotherJyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty –Valmiki Pratibha 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 wroteVisarjan (an adaptation of his novellaRajarshi), 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 playDak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] 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".[107][108] Another is Tagore'sChandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing howAnanda, theGautama Buddha's disciple, asks atribal girl for water.[109] InRaktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents ofYakshapuri.[110]
Chitrangada,Chandalika, andShyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known asRabindra Nritya Natya.
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman").[111] With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre.[112] 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-volumeGalpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories.[111] 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,Patisar, Shajadpur, andShilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings.[111] 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.[113] In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller fromKabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden.[114] Many of the otherGalpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore'sSabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.[111]
InChokher Bali (1902–1903), 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.
Ghare Baire (The Home and the World, 1916), through the lens of the idealisticzamindar protagonist Nikhil, excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in theSwadeshi movement; 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.[115]
His longest novel,Gora (1907–1910), raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As withGhare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle.[116] In it, an Irish boy orphaned in theSepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titulargora—"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 "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy but the extremist reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these, Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of asdharma."[117]
InJogajog (Yogayog,Relationships, 1929), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals ofŚiva-Sati, exemplified byDākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roué of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings;pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honor; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry.[118] 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 Kabita (1929) — translated twice asLast Poem andFarewell 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, bySatyajit Ray forCharulata (based onNastanirh) in 1964 andGhare Baire in 1984, and by several others filmmakers such as Satu Sen forChokher Bali already in 1938, when Tagore was still alive.
Poetry
Title page of the 1913Macmillan edition of Tagore'sGitanjaliPart of a poem written by Tagore in Hungary, 1926
Internationally,Gitanjali (Bengali:গীতাঞ্জলি) is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and the second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize afterTheodore Roosevelt.[119]
BesidesGitanjali, other notable works includeManasi,Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"),Balaka ("Wild Geese" – the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)[120]
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 ofVyasa and otherrishi-authors of theUpanishads, theBhakti-Sufi mysticKabir, andRamprasad Sen.[121] Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mysticBaul ballads such as those of the bardLalon.[122][123] These, rediscovered and re-popularized by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasize inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeoisbhadralok religious and social orthodoxy.[124][125] During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of themoner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon thejeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within".[22] 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 theRadha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over seventy years.[126][127]
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 includeAfrica andCamalia, 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.[128] His songs are known asrabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricized. Influenced by thethumri style ofHindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions.[129] They emulated the tonal color of classicalragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully, others newly blended elements of differentragas.[130] Yet about nine-tenths of his work was notbhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavors "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.[22]
Rabindranath Tagore reciting Jana Gana Mana
In 1971,Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem ofBangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the1905 Partition of Bengal 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 theindependence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism.Jana Gana Mana was written inshadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali,[131] and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymnBharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of theIndian National Congress,[132] and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that theModern Review observed that "[t]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".[133] Tagore influencedsitar maestroVilayat Khan andsarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta andAmjad Ali Khan.[130]
Art works
Primitivism: a pastel-coloured rendition of aMalagan mask from northernNew Ireland, Papua New Guinea
Tagore's Bengali-language initials, the letters র and ঠ, are worked into this "Ro-Tho" (of RAbindranath THAkur) wooden seal, stylistically similar to designs used in traditionalHaida carvings from thePacific Northwest region of North America. Tagore often embellished his manuscripts with such art.[134]
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[135]—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red, greencolor blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange color schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, includingscrimshaw by theMalanggan people of northernNew Ireland,Papua New Guinea,Haida carvings from thePacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the GermanMax Pechstein.[134] His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmicleitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.[22]
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 Jagadish Chandra 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.[136]
In 1937, Tagore's paintings were removed from Berlin's baroqueCrown Prince Palace by the Nazi regime and five were included in the inventory of "degenerate art" compiled by the Nazis in 1941–1942.[140]
Tagore hostsGandhi and wifeKasturba at Santiniketan in 1940.
Tagore opposedimperialism and supported Indian nationalists,[141][142][143] and these views were first revealed inManast, which was mostly composed in his twenties.[52] Evidence produced during theHindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of theGhadarites and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime MinisterTerauchi Masatake and former PremierŌkuma Shigenobu.[144] Yet he lampooned theSwadeshi movement; he rebuked it inThe Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay.[145] According toAmartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad.[146] 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".[147][148]
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.
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 an argument.[150] Tagore wrote songs lionizing the Indian independence movement.[151] 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 favored by Gandhi.[152] Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism,[153] Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".[154][155]
The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part, wish to stand, shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings.
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling, as shown in his short story, "The Parrot's Training", wherein a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death.[157][158] Visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, Tagore 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."[150] The school, which he namedVisva-Bharati,[d] had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later.[159] Tagore employed abrahmacharya 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,[160] and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks.[161] He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.[162]
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 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.[163] 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.[164] It inspired the fictional filmNobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri, accused of sheltering the thieves, was arrested.[165][166]
Bust of Rabindranath in Tagore promenade,Balatonfüred, HungaryRabindranath Tagore statue inDublin, Ireland
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 (US);Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries.[84][167][168] Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker".[168][146] Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonized as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".[169]
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-foundedDartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution;[170] in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureateYasunari Kawabata.[171] Incolonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicistNguyen An Ninh[172] Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech IndologistVincenc Lesný,[173] French Nobel laureateAndré Gide, Russian poetAnna Akhmatova,[174] former Turkish Prime MinisterBülent Ecevit,[175] and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies[e] 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.[9] Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonishedSalman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.[181]
By way of translations, Tagore influenced ChileansPablo Neruda andGabriela Mistral; Mexican writerOctavio Paz; and SpaniardsJosé Ortega y Gasset,Zenobia Camprubí, andJuan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revisedThe Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry".[182] Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] 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 ofPlato,Dante,Cervantes,Goethe, andTolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some.Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticized Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English."[9][183]William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?"[184] He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th century."[183][185] The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical",[186] and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Anyone who knows Tagore's poems in their original Bengali cannot feel satisfied with any of the translations (made with or without Yeats's help). Even the translations of his prose works suffer, to some extent, from distortion. E.M. Forster noted [of]The Home and the World [that] '[t]he theme is so beautiful,' but the charms have 'vanished in translation,' or perhaps 'in an experiment that has not quite come off.'
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali:House of theThakurs; anglicised toTagore) inJorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on theRabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane[187] Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007.[188] It is the house in which Tagore was born, and also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Who are you, reader, reading my poems a 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.
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg andWikisource. More sources arebelow.
^Gurudev translates as "divine mentor",Bishokobi translates as "poet of the world" andKobiguru translates as "great poet".[11]
^Tagore was born at No. 6 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko – the address of the main mansion (theJorasanko 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.[24][25]Dwarkanath Tagore was his paternal grandfather.[26] Debendranath had formulated theBrahmoist philosophies espoused by his friendRam Mohan Roy, and became focal in Brahmo society after Roy's death.[27][28]
^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 withSaraswati, the Hindu patron of learning.[159] "Visva-Bharati" also translates as "India in the World".
^Tagore was no stranger to controversy: his dealings with Indian nationalistsSubhas Chandra Bose[9] andRash Behari Bose,[176] his yen for Soviet Communism,[177][178] and papers confiscated from Indian nationalists in New York allegedly implicating Tagore in a plot to overthrow the Raj via German funds.[179] These destroyed Tagore's image—and book sales—in the United States.[176] His relations with and ambivalent opinion of Mussolini revolted many;[94] close friendRomain Rolland despaired that "[h]e is abdicating his role as moral guide of the independent spirits of Europe and India".[180]
^abStern, Robert W. (2001).Democracy and Dictatorship in South Asia: Dominant Classes and Political Outcomes in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 6.ISBN978-0-275-97041-3.
^abNewman, Henry (1921).The Calcutta Review.University of Calcutta. p. 252.I have also found that Bombay is India, Satara is India, Bangalore is India, Madras is India, Delhi, Lahore, the Khyber, Lucknow, Calcutta, Cuttack, Shillong, etc., are all India.
^"Nationalism is a Great Menace" Tagore and Nationalism, by Radhakrishnan M. and Roychowdhury D. from Hogan, P. C.; Pandit, L. (2003), Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, pp 29–40
Tagore, Rabindranath (1952),Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore, Macmillan Publishing (published January 1952),ISBN978-0-02-615920-3
Tagore, Rabindranath (1984),Some Songs and Poems from Rabindranath Tagore, East-West Publications,ISBN978-0-85692-055-4
Tagore, Rabindranath (2011), Alam, F.; Chakravarty, R. (eds.),The Essential Tagore, Harvard University Press (published 15 April 2011), p. 323,ISBN978-0-674-05790-6
Tagore, Rabindranath (1961), Chakravarty, A. (ed.),A Tagore Reader, Beacon Press (published 1 June 1961),ISBN978-0-8070-5971-5
Tagore, Rabindranath (1997a), Dutta, K.;Robinson, A. (eds.),Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore, Cambridge University Press (published 28 June 1997),ISBN978-0-521-59018-1
Tagore, Rabindranath (1997b), Dutta, K.;Robinson, A. (eds.),Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology, Saint Martin's Press (published November 1997),ISBN978-0-312-16973-2
Tagore, Rabindranath (2007), Ray, M. K. (ed.),The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, vol. 1, Atlantic Publishing (published 10 June 2007),ISBN978-81-269-0664-2
Bhattacharya, S. (2001),"Translating Tagore",The Hindu, Chennai, India (published 2 September 2001), archived fromthe original on 1 November 2003, retrieved9 September 2011
Brown, G. T. (1948), "The Hindu Conspiracy: 1914–1917",The Pacific Historical Review,17 (3), University of California Press (published August 1948):299–310,doi:10.2307/3634258,ISSN0030-8684,JSTOR3634258
Chakraborty, S. K.; Bhattacharya, P. (2001),Leadership and Power: Ethical Explorations, Oxford University Press (published 16 August 2001),ISBN978-0-19-565591-9
Dasgupta, T. (1993),Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis, Abhinav Publications (published 1 October 1993),ISBN978-81-7017-302-1
Datta, P. K. (2002),Rabindranath Tagore'sThe Home and the World: A Critical Companion (1st ed.), Permanent Black (published 1 December 2002),ISBN978-81-7824-046-6
Dutta, K.;Robinson, A. (1995),Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man, Saint Martin's Press (published December 1995),ISBN978-0-312-14030-4
Farrell, G. (2000),Indian Music and the West, Clarendon Paperbacks Series (3 ed.), Oxford University Press (published 9 March 2000),ISBN978-0-19-816717-4
Hogan, P. C. (2000),Colonialism and Cultural Identity: Crises of Tradition in the Anglophone Literatures of India, Africa, and the Caribbean, State University of New York Press (published 27 January 2000),ISBN978-0-7914-4460-3
Hogan, P. C.; Pandit, L. (2003),Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (published May 2003),ISBN978-0-8386-3980-1
Kripalani, K. (2005),Dwarkanath Tagore: A Forgotten Pioneer—A Life, National Book Trust of India,ISBN978-81-237-3488-0
Kripalani, K. (2005),Tagore—A Life, National Book Trust of India,ISBN978-81-237-1959-7
Lago, M. (1977),Rabindranath Tagore, Boston: Twayne Publishers (published April 1977),ISBN978-0-8057-6242-6
Lifton, B. J.;Wiesel, E. (1997),The King of Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak, St. Martin's Griffin (published 15 April 1997),ISBN978-0-312-15560-5
Prasad, A. N.; Sarkar, B. (2008),Critical Response To Indian Poetry in English, Sarup and Sons,ISBN978-81-7625-825-8
Roy, B. K. (1977),Rabindranath Tagore: The Man and His Poetry, Folcroft Library Editions,ISBN978-0-8414-7330-0
Scott, J. (2009),Bengali Flower: 50 Selected Poems from India and Bangladesh (published 4 July 2009),ISBN978-1-4486-3931-1
Sen, A. (2006),The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity (1st ed.), Picador (published 5 September 2006),ISBN978-0-312-42602-6
Sigi, R. (2006),Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore—A Biography, Diamond Books (published 1 October 2006),ISBN978-81-89182-90-8
Sinha, S. (2015),The Dialectic of God: The Theosophical Views of Tagore and Gandhi, Partridge Publishing India,ISBN978-1-4828-4748-2
Thompson, E. (1926),Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist, Pierides Press,ISBN978-1-4067-8927-0
Urban, H. B. (2001),Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal, Oxford University Press (published 22 November 2001),ISBN978-0-19-513901-3
History of the Tagore Festival, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Tagore Festival Committee, archived fromthe original on 13 June 2015, retrieved29 November 2009
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