Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter.
He reshaped
Bengali literature
Bengali literature ( bn, বাংলা সাহিত্য, Bangla Sahityô) denotes the body of writings in the Bengali language and which covers Old Bengali, Middle- Bengali and Modern Bengali with the changes through the passage of time ...
and
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
as well as
Indian art
Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile arts such as woven silk. Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, N ...
with
Contextual Modernism
''Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism'' was an exhibition curated by R. Siva Kumar at the National Gallery of Modern Art in 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India's Independence.
The exhibition, through bringing ...
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of ''
Gitanjali'', he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the
Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the
Royal Asiatic Society
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
. Referred to as "the
Bard
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise t ...
of Bengal",
Tagore was known by
sobriquets
A sobriquet ( ), or soubriquet, is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another, that is descriptive. A sobriquet is distinct from a pseudonym, as it is typically a familiar name used in place of a real name, without the need of expla ...
: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A
Bengali Brahmin from
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
with ancestral
gentry
Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past.
Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies
''Gentry'', in its widest ...
roots in
Burdwan district
Bardhaman district (, ; also spelled Burdwan or Barddhaman or Vardhaman) was a district in West Bengal. On 7 April 2017, the district was bifurcated into two districts: Purba Bardhaman and Paschim Bardhaman district. The headquarters of the dist ...
[*
*
* ] and
Jessore
Jessore ( bn, যশোর, jôshor, ), officially Jashore, is a city of Jessore District situated in Khulna Division. It is situated in the south-western part of Bangladesh. It is the administrative centre (headquarter) of the eponymous district ...
, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released
his first substantial poems 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
humanist,
universalist,
internationalist, and ardent critic of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
, he denounced the
British Raj
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...
and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the
Bengal Renaissance
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
, 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 of
Visva-Bharati University.
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'') and ''Ghare-Baire'' (''
The Home and the World
''The Home and the World'' (in the original Bengali, ঘরে বাইরে ''Ghôre Baire'' or ''Ghare Baire'', lit. "At home and outside") is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, be ...
'') 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
"" (Sanskrit: जन गण मन) is the national anthem of the Republic of India. It was originally composed as '' Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata'' in Bengali by polymath Rabindranath Tagore. The first stanza of the song ''Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata' ...
" and
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
's "
Amar Shonar Bangla
"" ( bn, আমার সোনার বাংলা, lit=My Golden Bengal, ) is the national anthem of Bangladesh. An ode to Mother Bengal, the lyrics were written by Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore in 1905, while the melody of the hymn ...
". The
Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
[*
*
* ]
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of
Thakur
Thakur may refer to:
* Thakur (title), a feudal title and surname used by erstwhile nobility of India
* Thakar (tribe), an Adivasi tribe of Maharashtra, India
* Thakur village, a residential locality in Mumbai, India
* Thakur Anoop Singh (born 198 ...
.
The original surname of the
Tagores was Kushari. They were
Pirali Brahmin ('Pirali’ historically carried a stigmatized and pejorative connotation) originally belonged to a village named ''Kush'' in the district named
Burdwan in
West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore,
Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya
Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya (27 July 1892–7 November 1985) was a Bengali writer best known for his biography of Rabindranath Tagore.
Early life
He started his early life at Giridih, now in Jharkhand, where his father Nagendranath Mukhopadh ...
wrote in the first volume of his book ''Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak'' that
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
![Tagore in London 1879](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Tagore_in_London_1879.jpg)
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the
Jorasanko mansion in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
,
the son of
Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
![Rabindranath-Tagore-Mrinalini-Devi-1883](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Rabindranath-Tagore-Mrinalini-Devi-1883.jpg)
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The
Tagore family was at the forefront of the
Bengal renaissance
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
. 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
Dhrupad
Dhrupad is a genre in Hindustani classical music from the Indian subcontinent. It is the oldest known style of major vocal styles associated with Hindustani classical music, Haveli Sangeet of Pushtimarg Sampraday and also related to the South Ind ...
musicians to stay in the house and teach
Indian classical music
Indian classical music is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as '' Hindustani'' and the South Indian expression known as '' Carnatic''. These traditions were not ...
to the children. Tagore's oldest brother
Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother,
Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European
Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother,
Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife
Kadambari 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.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby
Bolpur
Bolpur is a city and a municipality in Birbhum district in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Bolpur subdivision. Bolpur municipal area includes Santiniketan, Sriniketan and Prantik. The city is known as a Cultural a ...
and
Panihati
Panihati is a city and a municipality of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is close to Kolkata and also a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA).
History
There is a legen ...
, which the family visited. His brother
Hemendranath 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
Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his ''
upanayan'' (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
Santiniketan
Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son ...
estate and
Amritsar
Amritsar (), historically also known as Rāmdāspur and colloquially as ''Ambarsar'', is the second largest city in the Indian state of Punjab, after Ludhiana. It is a major cultural, transportation and economic centre, located in the Majha r ...
before reaching the
Himalayan hill station
A hill station is a town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain or valley. The term was used mostly in colonial Asia (particularly in India), but also in Africa (albeit rarely), for towns founded by European colonialists as refuges ...
of
Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, and examined the classical poetry of
Kālidāsa
Kālidāsa (''fl.'' 4th–5th century CE) was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on the Vedas, the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and t ...
.
[.] During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious
gurbani and
nanak bani
Gurū Nānak (15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539; Gurmukhi: ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ; pronunciation: , ), also referred to as ('father Nānak'), was the founder of Sikhism and is the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. His birth is celebrated wor ...
being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his ''My Reminiscences'' (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism. Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the
Maithili style of
Vidyapati
Vidyapati ( – 1460), also known by the sobriquet ''Maithil Kavi Kokil'' (the poet cuckoo of Maithili), was a Maithili and Sanskrit polymath-poet-saint, playwright, composer, biographer, philosopher, law-theorist, writer, courtier and ...
. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century
Vaiṣṇava
Vaishnavism ( sa, वैष्णवसम्प्रदायः, Vaiṣṇavasampradāyaḥ) is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. It is also called Vishnuism since it considers Vishnu as the ...
poet Bhānusiṃha.
[.] Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "
Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, ''Sandhya Sangit'' (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
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
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
and
Hove
Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...
, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and
Indira Devi
Indira Devi, born as Indira Raje (19 February 1892 – 6 September 1968), was the Maharani of the princely state of Cooch Behar, British India. She was the daughter of Chimnabai II. She broke her arranged engagement to marry Jitendra Narayan ...
, the children of Tagore's brother
Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of
Shakespeare's plays ''
Coriolanus'', and ''
Antony and Cleopatra
''Antony and Cleopatra'' (First Folio title: ''The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the King's Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around ...
and the
Religio Medici
''Religio Medici'' (''The Religion of a Doctor'') by Sir Thomas Browne is a spiritual testament and early psychological self-portrait. Published in 1643 after an unauthorized version was distributed the previous year, it became a European best- ...
of
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne (; 19 October 160519 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a deep curi ...
.'' Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of
Nidhubabu-authored ''
kirtans'' and ''
tappas'' and
Brahmo 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 Padma](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Tagore_family_boat_Padma.jpg)
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in
Shelaidaha
Shilaidaha Kuthibari ( bn, শিলাইদহ) is a place in Kumarkhali Upazila of Kushtia District in Bangladesh. The place is famous for Kuthi Bari; a country house made by Dwarkanath Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore lived a part of life here an ...
(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 ''
Zamindar
A zamindar ( Hindustani: Devanagari: , ; Persian: , ) in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a province. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughals and later the British had begun using it as a ...
Babu'', Tagore criss-crossed the
Padma River in command of the ''Padma'', the luxurious family barge (also known as "
budgerow
Budgerows were 'large and commodious, but generally cumbrous and sluggish keelless boats, used for journeys on the Ganges'. The term is thought to be an Anglicisation of the Hindi and Bengali word bajrā possibly derived from baglā or Arabic baga ...
"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met
Gagan Harkara
Gaganchandra Dam ( bn, গগনচন্দ্র দাম; 1845–1910), mostly known as Gagan Harkara ( bn, গগন হরকরা), was a Bengali Baul poet after the tune of whose famous song "Ami Kothay Pabo Tare" (কোথায় ...
, through whom he became familiar with
Baul Lalon Shah
Lalon ( bn, লালন; 14 October 1772 – 17 October 1890), also known as Lalon Shah, Lalon Fakir, Shahji and titled Fakir, Shah, was a prominent Bengali spiritual leader, philosopher, mystic poet and social reformer. Regarded as an icon of ...
, 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
![Tagore-THU](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Tagore-THU.jpg)
In 1901 Tagore moved to
Santiniketan
Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son ...
to found an
ashram
An ashram ( sa, आश्रम, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or a ...
with a marble-floored prayer hall—''The
Mandir
A Hindu temple, or ''mandir'' or ''koil'' in Indian languages, is a house, seat and body of divinity for Hindus. It is a structure designed to bring human beings and gods together through worship, sacrifice, and devotion.; Quote: "The Hind ...
''—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of
Tripura
Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the east a ...
, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in
Puri
Puri () is a coastal city and a Nagar Palika, municipality in the state of Odisha in eastern India. It is the district headquarters of Puri district and is situated on the Bay of Bengal, south of the state capital of Bhubaneswar. It is als ...
, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published ''
Naivedya
200px, Prasad thaal offered to Swaminarayan temple in Ahmedabad ">Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Ahmedabad">Swaminarayan temple in Ahmedabad
Prasada (, Sanskrit: प्रसाद, ), Prasadam or Prasad is a religious offering in Hinduism. Most o ...
'' (1901) and ''Kheya'' (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In 1912, Tagore translated his 1910 work ''
Gitanjali'' into English. While on a trip to London, he shared these poems with admirers including
William Butler Yeats and
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
. London's
India Society The Royal India Society was a 20th-century British learned society concerned with India.
The Society has had several names: the India Society (founded 1910); the Royal India Society (from 1944); the Royal India and Pakistan Society; the Royal Indi ...
published the work in a limited edition, and the American magazine ''
Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
'' published a selection from ''Gitanjali''. In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's
Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
: the
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy ( sv, Svenska Akademien), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III of Sweden, Gustav III, is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish lang ...
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
1915 Birthday Honours
The 1915 Birthday Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The King, and were ...
, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919
Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to
Lord Chelmsford
Viscount Chelmsford, of Chelmsford in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1921 for Frederic Thesiger, 3rd Baron Chelmsford, the former Viceroy of India. The title of Baron Chelmsford, of Chelm ...
, 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 country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia,
Syed Abdul Majid to visit
Sylhet
Sylhet ( bn, সিলেট) is a metropolitan city in northeastern Bangladesh. It is the administrative seat of the Sylhet Division. Located on the north bank of the Surma River at the eastern tip of Bengal, Sylhet has a subtropical climate an ...
for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist
Leonard Elmhirst
Leonard Knight Elmhirst (6 June 1893 – 16 April 1974) was a British philanthropist and agronomist who worked extensively in India. He co-founded with his wife, Dorothy, the Dartington Hall project in progressive education and rural reconstruct ...
set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in
Surul
Surul is a census town in Bolpur Sriniketan CD block in Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in the Indian state of West Bengal.
History
Surul is a village adjacent to Visva-Bharati University, founded by Rabindranath Tagore. A major part of ...
, a village near the ''ashram''. With it, Tagore sought to moderate
Gandhi's ''
Swaraj
Swarāj ( sa, स्वराज, translit=Svarāja '' sva-'' "self", '' raj'' "rule") can mean generally self-governance or "self-rule". It was first used by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to attain self rule from the Mughal Empire and the Adil ...
'' protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village
from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis
ngknowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and
untouchability
Untouchability is a form of social institution that legitimises and enforces practices that are discriminatory, humiliating, exclusionary and exploitative against people belonging to certain social groups. Although comparable forms of discrimin ...
. He lectured against these, he penned
Dalit
Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the Caste system in India, castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold Varna (Hinduism), varna syste ...
heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open
Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
![Last pic of Tagore](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Last_pic_of_Tagore.jpg)
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic
litterateur
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as ...
". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a
Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...
encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our
Prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinized orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year,
an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic ''
karma
Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...
'', 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 this newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of fil ...
's film ''
Apur Sansar
''Apur Sansar'' ( bn, অপুর সংসার), also known as ''The World of Apu'', is a 1959 Indian Bengali-language drama film produced, written and directed by Satyajit Ray. It is based on the second half of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's ...
''. 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— ''
Chitra'' (1914), ''Shyama'' (1939), and ''Chandalika'' (1938)— and in his novels— ''Dui Bon'' (1933), ''Malancha'' (1934), and ''Char Adhyay'' (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in ''Visva-Parichay'', 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 80.
He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. 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.
Travels
![Tagore Iran](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Tagore_Iran.jpg)
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé
Charles F. Andrews
Charles Freer Andrews (12 February 1871 – 5 April 1940) was an Church of England, Anglican priest and Christian missionary, educator and social reformer, and an activist for Indian independence movement, Indian independence. He became a clos ...
, Irish poet
William Butler Yeats,
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
,
Robert Bridges
Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...
,
Ernest Rhys
Ernest Percival Rhys ( ; 17 July 1859 – 25 May 1946) was a Welsh-English writer, best known for his role as founding editor of the Everyman's Library series of affordable classics. He wrote essays, stories, poetry, novels and plays.
Early life
...
,
Thomas Sturge Moore
Thomas Sturge Moore (4 March 1870 – 18 July 1944) was a British poet, author and artist.
Biography
Sturge Moore was born at 3 Wellington Square, Hastings, East Sussex, on 4 March 1870 and educated at Dulwich College, the Croydon School o ...
, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of ''Gitanjali''; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in
Butterton
Butterton is a small village in the Staffordshire Peak District of England (). It overlooks the Manifold Valley and Ecton Hill, which rises 1,212 feet above sea level. Butterton lies 5 miles east of Leek and roughly 8 miles from Alton Towers th ...
, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by
Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of
Victoria Ocampo
Ramona Victoria Epifanía Rufina Ocampo (7 April 1890 – 27 January 1979) was an Argentine writer and intellectual. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazine '' Sur'', she was also a writer and critic in he ...
. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met
Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon ''Il Duce''s fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "
ithout 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".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived at 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.
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 compose ''Jatri'' (1929). 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 Oxford
Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. 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". He visited
Aga Khan III
Sultan Muhammad Shah (2 November 187711 July 1957), commonly known by his religious title Aga Khan III, was the 48th Imam of the Nizariyya. He played an important role in British Indian politics.
Born to Aga Khan II in Karachi, Aga Khan III ...
, stayed at
Dartington Hall
Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I listed; described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "on ...
, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic
Hafez, was hosted by
Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson ,
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
,
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloq ...
,
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...
,
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
,
H.G. Wells, and
Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of
communalism
Communalism may refer to:
* Communalism (Bookchin), a theory of government in which autonomous communities form confederations
* , a historical method that follows the development of communities
* Communalism (South Asia), violence across ethnic ...
and nationalism only deepened.
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."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from 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'' (''
The Religion of Man''). His brief chat with
Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
, "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,
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
collaborated with
Visva-Bharati University to publish ''
The Essential Tagore'', the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by
Fakrul Alam
Fakrul Alam (born 20 July 1951) is a Bangladeshi academic, writer, and translator. He writes on literary matters and postcolonial issues and translated works of Jibanananda Das and Rabindranath Tagore into English. He is the recipient of Bangla A ...
and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
![Valmiki Pratibha Indira Devi & Rabindranath Tagore](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Valmiki_Pratibha_Indira_Devi_%26_Rabindranath_Tagore.jpg)
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother
Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — ''
Valmiki Pratibha
''Vālmīki-Praṭibhā'' ( bn, বাল্মীকি-প্রতিভা, ''Balmiki Protibha'', lit. ''The Genius of Vālmīki'') is an opera by Rabindranath Tagore. The Bengali libretto was written by Tagore himself based on the legend of ...
'' 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 ''
Dak Ghar
''Dak Ghar'' 1965 Bollywood fim based on an eponymous 1912 play by Rabindranath Tagore. It was directed by Zul Vellani and starred Sachin, Mukri, AK Hangal, Sudha and Satyen Kappu among others, with cameo appearances by Balraj Sahni and Shar ...
'' (''The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall
ngasleep", 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
Ananda, the
Gautama Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
's disciple, asks a
tribal girl for water. In ''Raktakarabi'' ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of ''
Yaksha
The yakshas ( sa, यक्ष ; pi, yakkha, i=yes) are a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous or capricious, connected with water, fertility, trees, the forest, treasure and wilderness. They appear in ...
puri
Puri () is a coastal city and a Nagar Palika, municipality in the state of Odisha in eastern India. It is the district headquarters of Puri district and is situated on the Bay of Bengal, south of the state capital of Bhubaneswar. It is als ...
''.
''Chitrangada'', ''Chandalika'', and ''Shyama'' are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as ''
Rabindra Nritya Natya
Rabindra Nritya Natya is the group of four dance-dramas composed by Bengal's Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore: ''Chitrangada'', ''Chandalika'', ''Shyama and Shrabangatha''.History of Bengali Literature, Dr. Dulal Chakraborty, July 2007, Bani Bit ...
''.
Short stories
![Sabujpatra logo (1914-1927)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Sabujpatra_logo_%281914-1927%29.jpg)
Tagore 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,
Patisar, Shajadpur, and
Shilaida 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 "
Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
", 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.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them ''Chaturanga'', ''
Shesher Kobita'', ''Char Odhay'', and ''Noukadubi''. ''Ghare Baire'' (''
The Home and the World
''The Home and the World'' (in the original Bengali, ঘরে বাইরে ''Ghôre Baire'' or ''Ghare Baire'', lit. "At home and outside") is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, be ...
'')—through the lens of the idealistic ''
zamindar
A zamindar ( Hindustani: Devanagari: , ; Persian: , ) in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a province. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughals and later the British had begun using it as a ...
'' protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the
''Swadeshi'' 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.
''Gora'' raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with ''Ghare Baire'', matters of self-identity (''
jāti''), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the
Sepoy Mutiny 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 "portray
ngthe 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 as ''
dharma
Dharma (; sa, धर्म, dharma, ; pi, dhamma, italic=yes) is a key concept with multiple meanings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and others. Although there is no direct single-word translation for '' ...
.''"
In ''
Jogajog
''Jogajog'' or ''Yogayog'' is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore. It was published in book form in 1929 (Asharh 1336). It was first serialised in the magazine ''Bichitra'' from Ashwin 1334 to Choitro 1335. In the first two issues the novel was titled ...
'' (''Relationships''), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of ''
Śiva
Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...
-
Sati'', exemplified by
Dākshāyani—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 honor; 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: ''
Chokher Bali'' and ''
Ghare Baire
''The Home and the World'' (in the original Bengali, ঘরে বাইরে ''Ghôre Baire'' or ''Ghare Baire'', lit. "At home and outside") is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, be ...
'' 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".
Poetry
![Tagore handwriting Bengali](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Tagore_handwriting_Bengali.jpg)
Internationally, ''Gitanjali'' ( bn, গীতাঞ্জলি) is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
.
Besides ''Gitanjali'', other notable works include ''Manasi'', ''
Sonar Tori
''Sonar Tori'' (alternatively spelt ''Sonar Tari'', ) is a collection of Bengali poetry by poet Rabindranath Tagore. The collection has more than forty poems and was first published in 1894. ''Sonar Tori'' is considered to be one of the most celeb ...
'' ("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
Vyasa
Krishna Dvaipayana ( sa, कृष्णद्वैपायन, Kṛṣṇadvaipāyana), better known as Vyasa (; sa, व्यासः, Vyāsaḥ, compiler) or Vedavyasa (वेदव्यासः, ''Veda-vyāsaḥ'', "the one who cl ...
and other ''rishi''-authors of the
Upanishads, the
Bhakti
''Bhakti'' ( sa, भक्ति) literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity".See Monier-Williams, ''Sanskrit Dictionary'', 1899. It was originally used in Hinduism, referring to d ...
-
Sufi
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
mystic
Kabir
Kabir Das (1398–1518) was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint. His writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement, and his verses are found in Sikhism's scripture Guru Granth Sahib, the Satguru Granth Sahib of Saint Garib Das, ...
, and
Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic
Baul ballads such as those of the bard
Lalon. These, rediscovered and re-popularized by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasize 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
Radha
Radha ( sa, राधा, ), also called Radhika, is a Hindu goddess and the chief consort of the god Krishna. She is worshiped as the goddess of love, tenderness, compassion, and devotion. She is the avatar of goddess Lakshmi and is also de ...
-
Krishna
Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is one ...
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 ''
rabindrasangit'' ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricized. Influenced by the ''
thumri'' style of
Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal color of classical ''
raga
A ''raga'' or ''raag'' (; also ''raaga'' or ''ragam''; ) is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music akin to a musical mode, melodic mode. The ''rāga'' is a unique and central feature of the classical Indian music tradit ...
s'' 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 flavors "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, ''
Amar Shonar Bangla
"" ( bn, আমার সোনার বাংলা, lit=My Golden Bengal, ) is the national anthem of Bangladesh. An ode to Mother Bengal, the lyrics were written by Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore in 1905, while the melody of the hymn ...
'' became the national anthem of
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
. It was written – ironically – to protest the
1905 Partition of Bengal
The first Partition of Bengal (1905) was a territorial reorganization of the Bengal Presidency implemented by the authorities of the British Raj. The reorganization separated the largely Muslim eastern areas from the largely Hindu western are ...
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
independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. ''
Jana Gana Mana
"" (Sanskrit: जन गण मन) is the national anthem of the Republic of India. It was originally composed as '' Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata'' in Bengali by polymath Rabindranath Tagore. The first stanza of the song ''Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata' ...
'' was written in ''
shadhu-bhasha
Sadhu bhasha ( bn, সাধু ভাষা, Sādhu bhāṣā, Chaste language) was a historical literary register of the Bengali language most prominently used in the 19th to 20th centuries during the Bengali Renaissance. Sadhu-bhasha was use ...
'', a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn ''
Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata'' that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...
and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
Sri Lanka's National Anthem 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 "
ere 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
Vilayat Khan
Ustad Vilayat Khan (28 August 1928 – 13 March 2004) was an Indian classical sitar player.[sarod
The sarod is a stringed instrument, used in Hindustani music on the Indian subcontinent. Along with the sitar, it is among the most popular and prominent instruments. It is known for a deep, weighty, introspective sound, in contrast with the sweet ...]
iyas'' Buddhadev Dasgupta and
Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red, green
color blind
Color blindness or color vision deficiency (CVD) is the decreased ability to see color or differences in color. It can impair tasks such as selecting ripe fruit, choosing clothing, and reading traffic lights. Color blindness may make some aca ...
, resulting in works that exhibited strange color schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including
scrimshaw by the
Malanggan
Malagan (also spelled malangan or malanggan) ceremonies are large, intricate traditional cultural events that take place in parts of New Ireland province in Papua New Guinea. The word malagan refers to wooden carvings prepared for ceremonies an ...
people of northern
New Ireland,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
,
Haida carvings from the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
region of North America, and woodcuts by the German
Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic
leitmotif
A leitmotif or leitmotiv () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is an anglici ...
s embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's
National Gallery of Modern Art
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
In 1937, Tagore's paintings were removed from Berlin's baroque
Crown Prince Palace by the Nazi regime and five were included in the inventory of "
degenerate art" compiled by the Nazis in 1941–1942.
Politics
![Gandhi-Tagore-cropped](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Gandhi-Tagore-cropped.jpg)
Tagore opposed
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in ''Manast'', which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the
Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial The Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial commenced in the District Court in San Francisco on November 12, 1917, following the uncovering of the :Hindu–German Conspiracy (also known as the Indo German plot) for initiating a revolt in India. It was pa ...
and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the
Ghadarites and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister
Terauchi Masatake and former Premier
Ōkuma Shigenobu
Marquess was a Japanese statesman and a prominent member of the Meiji oligarchy. He served as Prime Minister of the Empire of Japan in 1898 and from 1914 to 1916. Ōkuma was also an early advocate of Western science and culture in Japan, and ...
. Yet he lampooned the
Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in ''
The Cult of the Charkha'', an acrid 1925 essay. According to
Amartya Sen
Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, econom ...
, 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.
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".
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 lionizing the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "
Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo
"Where the mind is without fear" ( bn, চিত্ত যেথা ভয়শূন্য, ''Chitto Jetha Bhoyshunno'') is a poem written by 1913 Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore before India's independence. It represents Tagore's vision of a ...
" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "
Ekla Chalo Re
''Jôdi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tôbe Ekla Chôlo Re'' ("If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone"), commonly known as ''Ekla Chôlo Re'', is a Bengali patriotic song written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1905.
Originally titl ...
" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favored by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–
Ambedkar
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956) was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and political leader who headed the committee drafting the Constitution of India from the Constituent Assembly of India, Constit ...
dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy,
Lord Chelmsford
Viscount Chelmsford, of Chelmsford in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1921 for Frederic Thesiger, 3rd Baron Chelmsford, the former Viceroy of India. The title of Baron Chelmsford, of Chelm ...
, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
![Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Kala_Bhavan%2C_Santiniketan.jpg)
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. 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
nda world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named
Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a ''
brahmacharya
''Brahmacharya'' (; sa, ब्रह्मचर्य ) is a concept within Indian religions that literally means to stay in conduct within one's own Self. In Yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism it generally refers to a lifestyle charac ...
'' 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 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. 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 ''
Nobel Chor
''Nobel Chor'' ( bn, নোবেল চোর) () is a 2012 Bengali-language Indian film directed by Suman Ghosh, starring Mithun Chakraborty, Soumitra Chatterjee, Roopa Ganguly and Saswata Chatterjee. The film was officially selected for the ...
''. 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 Bust in Gordon Square](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Rabindranath_Tagore_Bust_in_Gordon_Square.jpg)
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. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker".
Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 ''Rabīndra 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".
![Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath 1861-1941 Indian Poet stayed here in 1912](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Rabindranath_Tagore_Rabindranath_1861-1941_Indian_Poet_stayed_here_in_1912.jpg)
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded
Dartington Hall School
Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I listed; described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "on ...
, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate
Yasunari Kawabata. In
colonial Vietnam
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist
Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist
Vincenc Lesný
Vincenc Lesný (3 April 1882, Komárovice – 9 April 1953, Prague) was a Czechs, Czech professor and research scholar of Indology and Iranian Studies.
Early life
The second son of Baltazar Lesný and Victorie (née Sujerlova), Vincenc was born a ...
, French Nobel laureate
André Gide, Russian poet
Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister
Bülent Ecevit
Mustafa Bülent Ecevit (; 28 May 1925 – 5 November 2006) was a Turkish politician, statesman, poet, writer, scholar, and journalist, who served as the Prime Minister of Turkey four times between 1974 and 2002. He served as prime minister in ...
, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...
during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
and
Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer
Octavio Paz; and Spaniards
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset (; 9 May 1883 – 18 October 1955) was a Spanish philosopher and essayist. He worked during the first half of the 20th century, while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism, and dictatorship. His philosoph ...
,
Zenobia Camprubí
Zenobia Camprubí Aymar (31 August 1887 – 25 October 1956) was a Spain, Spanish-born writer and poet; she was also a noted translator of the works of Rabindranath Tagore.
She was born in Malgrat de Mar (province of Barcelona, Catalonia) ...
, and
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (; 23 December 1881 – 29 May 1958) was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which in the Spanish language constitutes an example of high ...
. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised ''The Crescent Moon'' and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal
wes to how
Wes or WES may refer to:
* Westmorland, county in England, Chapman code
__NOTOC__ People and fictional characters
* Wes (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Wes Madiko (1964–2021), Cameroonian musici ...
he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have
..Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who
..pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
,
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
,
Cervantes,
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
, and
Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some.
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
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."
William Radice, who "English
d his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur
l, bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th
ntury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
![Kachari Bari1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Kachari_Bari1.jpg)
There are eight Tagore museums, three in India and five in Bangladesh:
* Rabindra Bharati Museum, at
Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
* Tagore Memorial Museum, at
Shilaidaha Kuthibadi,
Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
* Rabindra Memorial Museum at
Shahzadpur Kachharibari
thumb
Kachharibari ( bn, কাছারি-বাড়ি ''revenue office'') also known as Rabindra Kachharibari (রবীন্দ্র কাছারি বাড়ি) or Rabindra Memorial Museum in Shahzadpur, Sirajganj District in ...
,
Shahzadpur
Shahjadpur ( bn, শাহজাদপুর) is an upazila or sub-district of Sirajganj District in Rajshahi Division of Bangladesh.
History
Makhdum Shah Daulah Shahid was a Fourteenth Century Muslim saint recognized for his preaching of Islam ...
, Bangladesh
* Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in
Santiniketan
Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son ...
, India
*
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
* Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar,
Atrai,
Naogaon
Naogaon ( bn, নওগাঁ ''Nôogã'') is a city and district headquarter of Naogaon District in northern Bangladesh. It is located in the bank of Mini Jamuna river. It is the centre of commerce within the Naogaon District. The area of th ...
, Bangladesh
* Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge,
Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
*
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village,
Phultala Upazila,
Khulna
Khulna ( bn, খুলনা, ) is the third-largest city in Bangladesh, after Dhaka and Chittagong. It is the administrative centre of Khulna District and Khulna Division. Khulna's economy is the third-largest in Bangladesh, contributing $53 b ...
, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
: ''House of the
Thakurs''; anglicised to ''Tagore'') in
Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the
Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. 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.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near
Phultala Upazila, from
Khulna
Khulna ( bn, খুলনা, ) is the third-largest city in Bangladesh, after Dhaka and Chittagong. It is the administrative centre of Khulna District and Khulna Division. Khulna's economy is the third-largest in Bangladesh, contributing $53 b ...
city,
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
. It was the residence of Tagore's father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. The Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village; the poet's mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi were born in this village. Young Tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mother's ancestral home; Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by the Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. The Department of Archeology carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in the 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 that last for three days.
List of works
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 and
Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually rep ...
. More sources are
below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
* ''
Natir Puja
''Natir Puja'' ( English:the dancing girl's worship) is the only film where Rabindranath Tagore is credited as director. This film is a recording of Tagore's 1926 stage dance-drama of the same name.
Background
The dramatized version of Tagore ...
'' – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
* ''
Gora'' – 1938
Gora (novel)
''Gora'' (Bengali: গোরা) is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, set in Calcutta (now Kolkata), in the 1880s during the British Raj. It is the fifth in order of writing and the longest of Tagore’s twelve novels. It is rich in philosophical ...
–
Naresh Mitra
Naresh Mitra (18 May 1888 – 1968) was a Bengali actor, director and screenwriter.
Career
Naresh Mitra was born in 1888 in Agartala, Tripura, British India. He studied law from the University of Calcutta. He started his acting career in 1922 i ...
* ''
Noukadubi
''Noukadubi'' ( bn, নৌকাডুবি, ''Boat wreck'') is a Bengali novel written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1906. The novel was first published in Bangadarshan, a Bengali literary magazine which was under the editorship of Rabindranath ...
'' –
Nitin Bose
Nitin Bose (26 April 1897 – 14 April 1986) was an Indian film director, cinematographer and screenwriter of the nation's film industry. He was born in Calcutta and died in the same city. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he worked with New Theatre ...
* ''
Bou Thakuranir Haat
''Bou Thakuranir Haat'' is a Bengali drama film directed by Naresh Mitra based on a novel of Rabindranath Tagore in the same name, published in 1883. This film was released in 1953 in the banner of Emar Productions.
Plot
The film is based on t ...
'' – 1953 (''Bou Thakuranir Haat'') –
Naresh Mitra
Naresh Mitra (18 May 1888 – 1968) was a Bengali actor, director and screenwriter.
Career
Naresh Mitra was born in 1888 in Agartala, Tripura, British India. He studied law from the University of Calcutta. He started his acting career in 1922 i ...
* ''
Kabuliwala'' – 1957 (Kabuliwala) –
Tapan Sinha
* ''
Kshudhita Pashan'' – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
* ''
Teen Kanya'' – 1961 (Teen Kanya) –
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of fil ...
* ''
Charulata '' – 1964 (
Nastanirh
''Nastanirh'' (also ''Nashtanir''; Bengali: নষ্টনীড়, ''Nôshţoniŗh''; English: 'The Broken Nest') is a 1901 Bengali novella by Rabindranath Tagore. It is the basis for the noted 1964 film ''Charulata'', by Satyajit Ray.
Backgrou ...
) – Satyajit Ray
* ''
Megh o Roudra
''Megh o Roudra'' (English: Clouds and Sunshine) is a Bengali drama film directed by Arundhati Devi and produced by Ajitesh Bandopadhyay based on Rabindranath Tagore's short story by the same name. This film was released in 1969 under the banner ...
'' – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) –
Arundhati Devi
Arundhati Devi (; also known as Arundhati Mukherjee or Mukhopadhyay) (1924 – 1990) was an Indian actress, director, writer and singer who is predominantly known for her work in Bengali cinema.
Arundhati Devi was a student of Visva-Bharati Un ...
* ''
Ghare Baire
''The Home and the World'' (in the original Bengali, ঘরে বাইরে ''Ghôre Baire'' or ''Ghare Baire'', lit. "At home and outside") is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, be ...
'' – 1985 (
Ghare Baire
''The Home and the World'' (in the original Bengali, ঘরে বাইরে ''Ghôre Baire'' or ''Ghare Baire'', lit. "At home and outside") is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, be ...
) – Satyajit Ray
* ''
Chokher Bali'' – 2003 (
Chokher Bali) –
Rituparno Ghosh
* ''
Shasti
''Shasti'' ( bn, শাস্তি; 'Punishment') is a Bangladeshi Bengali-language film. It is the film presented by HSBC Bank Bangladesh. It was released in 2004 all over Bangladesh.
Cast
* Ilyas Kanchan as Dukhiram
* Campa as Radha
* Riaz as ...
'' – 2004 (
Shasti
''Shasti'' ( bn, শাস্তি; 'Punishment') is a Bangladeshi Bengali-language film. It is the film presented by HSBC Bank Bangladesh. It was released in 2004 all over Bangladesh.
Cast
* Ilyas Kanchan as Dukhiram
* Campa as Radha
* Riaz as ...
) –
Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chashi Nazrul Islam (11 October 1941 – 11 January 2015) was a Bangladeshi film director and producer. He won Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Director twice for the films Shuvoda (1986) and Hangor Nodi Grenade (1997). He was awarded Eku ...
* ''
Shuva
Shuva ( he, שׁוּבָה) is a religious moshav in southern Israel. Located near Netivot and covering 4,500 dunams, it falls under the jurisdiction of Sdot Negev Regional Council. In it had a population of .
History
The village was establis ...
'' – 2006 ''(Shuvashini)'' –
Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chashi Nazrul Islam (11 October 1941 – 11 January 2015) was a Bangladeshi film director and producer. He won Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Director twice for the films Shuvoda (1986) and Hangor Nodi Grenade (1997). He was awarded Eku ...
* ''
Chaturanga
Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chinese), ...
'' – 2008 ''(
Chaturanga
Chaturanga ( sa, चतुरङ्ग; ') is an ancient Indian strategy game. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is that it is the common ancestor of the board games chess (European), xiangqi (Chinese), ...
)'' –
Suman Mukhopadhyay
Suman Mukhopadhyay ( bn, সুমন মুখোপাধ্যায়; born 20 November 1966) is an Indian film director.His popular films are Herbert (film), Kangal Malsat, Shesher Kobita (2014).
Career
Suman Mukhopadhyay is currently v ...
* ''
Noukadubi
''Noukadubi'' ( bn, নৌকাডুবি, ''Boat wreck'') is a Bengali novel written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1906. The novel was first published in Bangadarshan, a Bengali literary magazine which was under the editorship of Rabindranath ...
'' – 2011 ''(
Noukadubi
''Noukadubi'' ( bn, নৌকাডুবি, ''Boat wreck'') is a Bengali novel written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1906. The novel was first published in Bangadarshan, a Bengali literary magazine which was under the editorship of Rabindranath ...
)'' –
Rituparno Ghosh
* ''
Elar Char Adhyay
''Elar Char Adhyay'' is a 2012 Bengali film. The film is directed by Bappaditya Bandopadhyay, produced by Dreamz Movies and Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and based on Rabindranath Tagore's 1934 novel '' Char Adhyay''.
Plot
The film is set in India ...
'' – 2012 (Char Adhyay) –
Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
* ''Sacrifice'' – 1927 (
Balidan
''Balidan'' also called ''Sacrifice'', is a 1927 Indian silent film directed by Naval Gandhi and based on a play by Rabindranath Tagore. It was produced by Orient Pictures Corporation. Balidan is cited as one of the top ten lost films of Indian ...
) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
* ''Milan'' – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) –
Nitin Bose
Nitin Bose (26 April 1897 – 14 April 1986) was an Indian film director, cinematographer and screenwriter of the nation's film industry. He was born in Calcutta and died in the same city. In the 1930s and early 1940s, he worked with New Theatre ...
* ''
Dak Ghar
''Dak Ghar'' 1965 Bollywood fim based on an eponymous 1912 play by Rabindranath Tagore. It was directed by Zul Vellani and starred Sachin, Mukri, AK Hangal, Sudha and Satyen Kappu among others, with cameo appearances by Balraj Sahni and Shar ...
'' – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
* ''
Kabuliwala'' – 1961 (Kabuliwala) –
Bimal Roy
* ''
Uphaar'' – 1971 (Samapti) –
Sudhendu Roy
* ''
Lekin...'' – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) –
Gulzar
* ''
Char Adhyay
''Char Adhyay'' (English: Four Chapters) 1997 Indian Hindi language drama film written and directed by Kumar Shahani. It is based on Rabindranath Tagore's last novel by the same name, written in 1934.
The film is set in the late Bengali Renaissa ...
'' – 1997 (Char Adhyay) –
Kumar Shahani
Kumar Shahani (born 7 December 1940) is an Indian film director and screenwriter, best known for his parallel cinema films '' Maya Darpan'' (1972), ''Tarang'' (1984), ''Khayal Gatha'' (1989) and '' Kasba'' (1990). Due to his dedication to forma ...
* ''Kashmakash'' – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
* ''
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore
''Stories by Rabindranath Tagore'' is a 2015 Indian Hindi television series which aired on the EPIC channel. It is directed by Anurag Basu.
Overview
Set in Bengal of the 1920s, the show is a representation of the classic short stories by the B ...
'' (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 –
Anurag Basu
* ''
Bioscopewala
''Bioscopewala'' () is an Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Deb Medhekar, and produced by Sunil Doshi. The film stars Danny Denzongpa and Geetanjali Thapa in lead roles and had its world premiere at the 30th Tokyo International Film F ...
'' – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb Medhekar
* ''Bhikharin''
In popular culture
* ''
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
'' is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of fil ...
, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the
Government of India
The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...
's
Films Division
The Films Division of India (FDI), commonly referred as Films Division, was established in 1948 following the independence of India. It was the first state film production and distribution unit, under the Ministry of Information and Broadcastin ...
.
* Serbian composer
Darinka Simic-Mitrovic used Tagore's text for her song cycle ''Gradinar'' in 1962.
* In 1969, American composer
E. Anne Schwerdtfeger
Elizabeth Anne Schwerdtfeger (1 February 1930 - 11 September 2008) was an American composer, choral conductor, educator, and Fulbright scholar who spent several years as a Dominican nun and was also known as Sister Mary Ernest O.P. (Ordo Praedica ...
was commissioned to compose ''Two Pieces'', a work for women's chorus based on text by Tagore.
* In Sukanta Roy's
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
film ''Chhelebela'' (2002)
Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
* In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film ''Chirosakha He'' (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
* In
Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film ''Jeevan Smriti'' (2011)
Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
* In
Suman Ghosh
Pandit Suman Ghosh is an internationally acclaimed Hindustani Classical Vocalist of the Mewati Gharana of Hindustani Classical Music and a torch-bearing disciple of Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj. He is the founder and President of the Center ...
's Bengali film ''
Kadambari'' (2015)
Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
*
List of Indian writers
*
Kazi Nazrul Islam
*
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Jayanti (রবীন্দ্র জয়ন্তী) is an annually celebrated cultural festival, prevalent among Tagorephiles (people who love Tagore and his works) around the world, in the remembrance of Rabindranath Tagore's birth ...
*
Rabindra Puraskar
The Rabindra Puraskar (also Rabindra Smriti Puraskar) is the highest honorary literary award given in the Indian state of West Bengal. This award is named after the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and is administered by the Government of W ...
*
Tagore family
* ''
An Artist in Life'' — biography by
Niharranjan Ray
Niharranjan Ray (1903–1981) was an Indian Bengali historian, well known for his works on the history of art and Indian history.
Early life and education
He was born on 14 January 1903 at Kayetgram village of Mymensingh District in Bengal provi ...
*
Taptapadi
*
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
*
Music of Bengal
Bengali music ( bn, বাংলা সংগীত) comprises a long tradition of religious and secular song-writing over a period of almost a millennium. Composed with lyrics in the Bengali language, Bengali music spans a wide variety of ...
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
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Texts
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Translated
Further reading
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External links
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School of Wisdom*
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore" ''
The Fortnightly Review
''The Fortnightly Review'' was one of the most prominent and influential magazines in nineteenth-century England. It was founded in 1865 by Anthony Trollope, Frederic Harrison, Edward Spencer Beesly, and six others with an investment of £9,000; ...
'', March 1913
''Mary Lago Collection'' University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...
Audiobooks
*
Texts
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Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum*
*
Talks
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tagore, Rabindranath
Writers from Kolkata
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
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Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
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English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
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Indian male songwriters
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19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath Ravindranath or Rabindranath is an Indian name and may refer to the following:
* Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), Bengali poet
* Rabindranath Bhattacharjee, Indian politician
* Rabindranath Maharaj (born 1955), Trinidad-born Canadian author
* Rab ...
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
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Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
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19th-century Indian musicians
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20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
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Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
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20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
People associated with Shillong
Indian social reformers