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Magill's Survey of World Literature Rabindranath Tagore Born: Calcutta, Bengal, British India (now Kolkata, West Bengal, India); May 7, 1861 Died: Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal, India; August 7, 1941 Though he had long been admired in his native India for his Bengali poems, plays, and fiction, Tagore attained recognition throughout the world only after his Gitanjali (Gitanjali Song Offerings) were published in English, winning him the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature. Biography Rabindranath Tagore (tah-GOR), whose name is sometimes transliterated as Ravindranatha Thakura, was born in Calcutta, India, on May 7, 1861, the fourteenth of fifteen children of Devendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi Tagore. His grandfather, Dwarkanath Tagore, was a Brahman, a landowner, and the wealthiest Indian merchant of his time, as well as a reformer strongly influenced by the European Enlightenment. Rabindranath's father Devendranath was also reform-minded. He became a leader of the Brahma Samaj, a sect founded by Dwarkanath's friend Raja Rammohan Roy, which scandalized traditional Hindus by rejecting polytheism, ritualistic worship, and the caste system. Devendranath's broad-mindedness in religious matters and his emphasis on the spiritual rather than the material is reflected in Rabindranath's thought and in his writings. Rabindranath grew up in the mansion his grandfather had built in Jorasanko, north of Calcutta. The Jorasanko mansion was the most important cultural center in the area. The Tagores and their friends read and discussed the literature of various countries, speculated about ideas, and made plans for the social, educational, and economic reforms that India so clearly needed. Unlike many Indians of their time, the Tagores did not abandon their own traditions; instead, they sought to achieve a synthesis between British culture and their own. It is hardly surprising, then, that while Rabindranath knew English well, throughout his life almost all of his creative works were written in Bengali, rather than in English. Though Rabindranath attended several different schools, he was uninspired by his teachers and rebelled against the rigidity of the system. His learned far more from the discussions he heard at home, from talks with his tutors, and from reading whatever interested him. It soon became clear that he was meant to be a writer. His first poem was published when he was thirteen, and a collection of his poetry appeared four years later. In 1878, the family sent him to England to study law, but after two unproductive years there he returned to India, where Rabindranath and his brilliant older brother Jyotirindranath founded a literary journal and collaborated on an opera. Meanwhile, Rabindranath himself wrote songs, poems, plays, and essays. In 1883, Rabindranath's father found him a wife, the ten-year-old daughter of an employee on one of the Tagore estates. The family changed her name, Bhabatarini, to the more euphonious Mrinalini. Since she was barely literate, arrangements were made for her to receive some education. The couple had three daughters and two sons. However, their family life was marked by tragedy. Tagore's wife died in 1902, their daughter Renuka in 1903, and their son Samindranath in 1907. In 1905, Tagore lost his father. His eldest daughter, Bela, would die in 1918. After Tagore returned from a brief trip to England in 1890, his father had decided to give him some practical business experience by making him manager of the family estates in eastern Bengal. There Tagore became acutely aware of the plight of the rural poor. Not only did he make their hardships the subject matter of much of his short fiction, but he also took practical steps to alleviate their poverty by setting up a weaving school, an agricultural cooperative bank, and an agricultural institute. His long-standing dissatisfaction with traditional educational methods also inspired him to establish an experimental school at Santiniketan. Tagore himself conducted many of the classes there. In 1918, the school became an international university, Visva-Bharati. In 1912, Tagore scheduled a trip to the United States in order to be present when his surviving son, Rathindranath, graduated from the University of Illinois in Urbana. En route, he spent some time in London, where he showed the painter William Rothenstein a collection of his poems, which he had translated into English prose. Rothenstein sent a copy of the manuscript to the famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats, and Tagore was soon the toast of the literary community. In November, 1912, the India Society of London brought out a limited edition of Gitanjali (1910; Gitanjali Song Offerings, 1912); after it sold out, Macmillan took over publication of the volume. On November 14, 1913, Tagore was informed that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Asian to be so honored. During his first visit to the United States, Tagore lectured in Urbana, in Chicago, and at Harvard University. Over the next two decades, he would travel throughout the world, giving readings or lectures, the proceeds of which went to his educational projects. Meanwhile, Tagore continued to turn out creative works. His poems, plays, and fiction were translated into English and then into numerous other languages. In the 1930's, Tagore took up painting and soon attained recognition as one of India's finest artists. It is ironic that though Tagore had long been recognized in India as the preeminent Bengali man of letters, he did not attain an international reputation until he was in his early fifties, when his works appeared in English and he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Thereafter, almost every year brought him a new honor. For example, in 1915, Tagore was knighted by the British government, though four years later he resigned his knighthood as a protest against the Amritsar Massacre. On his seventieth birthday in 1931, he was given The Golden Book of Tagore, a compilation of tributes from people throughout the world. In 1940, Oxford University awarded him a doctorate in literature, but ill health prevented him from receiving the degree in person. Tagore died on August 7, 1941. Analysis Tagore's works reflect both the pride his family felt in their Bengali culture and their belief in a deity who transcends the limits of time, place, and creed. Unlike other upper-class families who expected their children to receive the equivalent of a British education, the Tagores insisted that in addition to becoming fluent in English and familiar with European literature, their offspring know both Sanskrit and Bengali and read extensively in works written in those two languages. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the nationalist fervor sweeping across the subcontinent stimulated interest in native languages such as Bengali. The Tagores responded to this movement in 1877 by establishing Bharati, a monthly journal in Bengali. It was there that Rabindranath Tagore's first poems appeared. Though they were highly praised, it soon became clear that this young man did not intend to hold to tradition. He rejected the formal tone of older Bengali poetry; he invented new poetic forms and tried out new meters; and most shocking of all, he wrote in the vernacular. Tagore was just as free-spirited when he set his poems to music, adapting classical forms at will. Since the short story was a relatively new form, Tagore could not so easily be criticized for his short fiction. However, some readers were surprised by his interest in the powerless and by his use of a simple, colloquial style. Tagore's importance as a Bengali writer cannot be overstated. He is credited with single-handedly transforming the Bengali language. Moreover, his experiments with form and content made it possible for his successors to move into the literary mainstream. For these reasons, Tagore is called the father of modern Bengali literature and a major influence on Indian writers. Even in translation it is evident that Tagore is a master of description, plot, and characterization. However, another reason for his lasting appeal to readers throughout the world is his spirituality. In Gitanjali Song Offerings, it is evident that Tagore regards his deity as an ever-present companion. In Tagore's fiction and his plays, it is equally clear that he sees life as a struggle between good and evil. Neither creed nor class can guarantee virtue; Tagore's noblest characters are often the most powerless, whether because, like Nikhil in Ghare baire (1916; Home and the World, 1919), they live by their principles or because, like the lowly title character in the short story "Kabuliwallah," they are capable of unconditional love. Tagore's sympathy for children, for women, and for the poor is evident throughout his works. His distrust of ritual is shown in the short story "Forbidden Entry," in which the guardian of a temple to Krishna has no compassion for human beings. By contrast, the way in which someone in power should behave is illustrated in his best-known play, Dakghar (pb. 1912; The Post Office, 1914), in which a king commands that a dying boy's fantasy be fulfilled. Tagore's philosophy was also evident in the subject matter of his lectures, which were written in English and therefore could be published without having to be translated. One of his most popular volumes, Sadhana: The Realisation of Life (1913), deals with the problem of evil and the relationship between human beings and the divine. In Nationalism (1917), which was drawn from lectures presented in Japan and America, Tagore courageously criticized the nationalistic attitudes of modern nations and specifically of those two. Both that volume and The Religion of Man (1931) continued to be reprinted and reread long after Tagore's death. In The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore (1994-1996), edited by Sisir Kumar Das, which contains both works Tagore composed in English and Bengali works that he himself translated into English, it is evident that Tagore could handle the English language as skillfully as Bengali. Therefore scholars can no longer consider Tagore merely an important Indian writer. Though he did play a major role in the development of his native language and literature, he is also considered a predecessor of the many South Asians now writing in English. Gitanjali Song Offerings First Published: Gitanjali,1910 (English translation, 1912) Type of Work: Poetry In a series of lyrical poems, the writer voices his yearning for union with the divine. Gitanjali Song Offerings is a collection of 103 prose poems, selected by Tagore from among his Bengali poems and translated by him into English. The collection brought Tagore international attention and won him the Nobel Prize in Literature. Although Tagore later published more than twenty additional volumes of his poetry in English translation, Gitanjali Song Offerings remained one of his most beloved works. Western readers immediately noted similarities between Gitanjali Song Offerings and the biblical Song of Songs, which most theologians insist deals not with a human union but with Christ's love for his church. Though Gitanjali Song Offerings also is filled with sensual imagery, there is no doubt that Tagore's subject is the relationship between a human being and the divine. When Tagore mentioned his admiration for Vaishnava poetry in an essay published in 1912, undoubtedly he had in mind the Gita Govinda, a long poem written in the twelfth century by the Bengali poet Sri Jayadev, which Westerners have often called the Indian Song of Songs. The Gita Govinda shows the god Vishnu, in his incarnation as Krishna, in passionate pursuit of the cowgirl Radha. Since Vaishnavism, or the worship of this very human god, was especially popular in Bengal, Bengali poets often wrote about Krishna's love for Radha. Though Tagore himself, reared a theist, did not adhere to Vaishnavism, he drew upon the Vaishnava tradition for his imagery because he saw the many similarities between the pursuit of a lover and a human being's pursuit of the divine or the reverse. The Vaishnava tradition also accounts for variations in the poetic voice. Sometimes, as in numbers 49 and 52, the speaker seems to be a woman like Radha, a beggar maid waiting for her king; at other times, the poet is clearly a male, desirous of union with the divine. Though Gitanjali Song Offerings is a collection, not a single narrative, it does have a certain unity. All of the poems are devotional in nature, and they all have the tender tone of conventional love poems. There are also several motifs or subordinate themes that are repeated and recombined throughout the collection. In the first three poems, for example, the writer emphasizes his smallness and his helplessness before his lord. Then the emphasis shifts to what is expected of the writer: He must live a life of truth, purity, and simplicity, thus reflecting the nature of the divinity he serves. However, in several poems, including number 73, the poet maintains that union with the divine does not mean renunciation of the senses but a fuller appreciation of what they reveal, notably the beauties of the natural world. Though in number 35, the writer asks that his country be led toward reason and freedom, usually the prayers are personal. Naturally, the mood may shift: Though many are poems of praise and joy, some speak of the writer's desperate longing for the beloved, and others express feelings of abandonment. Toward the end of the volume, the writer turns to the subject of time, and finally, he anticipates his own death. Gitanjali Song Offerings ends on a note of triumph, with the poet finally united with his beloved God. Home and the World First Published: Ghare baire, 1916 (English translation, 1919) Type of Work: Novel An idealistic husband frees his wife from her traditional role in society, only to have her betray him with the ruthless leader of what proves to be a terrorist movement. Home and the World is set during the height of the Swadeshi movement, a boycott of British goods that was initiated in 1905 as a protest against Great Britain's arbitrary division of Bengal into two parts. At first, Tagore was one of the leaders of Swadeshi, but when protests evolved into violent conflicts between Muslims and Hindus, Tagore left the movement. In Home and the World, he explained why he did not approve of what Swadeshi had become. The novel consists of twenty-three chapters, each of them a first-person narrative by one of the three major characters. The first and the last chapters are both labeled "Bimala's Story," thus emphasizing the fact that the young wife Bimala is the pivotal character in what is superficially a love triangle but, more profoundly, is a conflict between two points of view, one good, the other, evil. The other two narrators are Nikhil, Bimala's husband, a wealthy landowner with Enlightenment views and a benevolent nature, and Sandip, a charismatic but completely unscrupulous Swadeshi leader. Although for some time her husband has urged Bimala to move out into the world, it is not until she meets the charismatic Sandip that she decides to take advantage of the freedom Nikhil has offered her. The first time Sandip comes to dinner, he urges her to remain with the men and take part in the discussion. Nikhil feels that he must invite Sandip to be his guest while he is in the area, but a few days stretch into weeks, and Sandip is still present. Although he admits to the reader that he believes strong men have the right to take whatever they want, he conceals his ruthlessness from Bimala. Instead, he flatters her, calling her the "mother" of the Swadeshi movement, or the "Queen Bee." Though Nikhil's old master, who is visiting, urges him to get rid of Sandip, Nikhil knows that Bimala would not permit him to evict the agitator. However, when he learns that the Muslims are planning to attack his home in order to kill Sandip, Nikhil informs his guest that he must leave. Meanwhile, Bimala has given her jewels to Sandip, as well as a large sum of money, which she stole from her husband with the aid of Sandip's young follower Amulya, whom she has taken under her wing. Just before fleeing from the Muslims, Sandip does return the money and the jewels, insisting that for once in his life he has felt pangs of conscience. However, Bimala has recovered from her infatuation with Sandip and his cause. She now realizes that Nikhil is not only good but also wise. Before she can ask his forgiveness, however, her chivalrous husband gallops off to protect some women he hears are being mistreated by Muslim looters. Several hours later, Nikhil is brought back, critically injured. Amulya is dead. Despite the fact that Tagore does not rule out the possibility that Nikhil will live and become reconciled with his repentant wife, The Home and the World is often described as Tagore's darkest novel. It is significant that when the noted director Satyajit Ray filmed The Home and the World in 1984, he changed the ending: In his version, it is Nikhil's body that is brought back, and Bimala is left with nothing but regrets. Selected Short Stories First Published: 1991 Type of Work: Short stories Peasants and landowners alike choose between compassion and cruelty, virtue and vice. In his introduction to this volume, editor and translator William Radice explains his reasons for including only short stories that Tagore wrote during the 1890's, when he was in his thirties. At that time, Tagore was preoccupied with the narrative form, as is evident from the fact that fifty-nine of his lifetime's output of ninety short stories came out of that relatively brief period. Most of the thirty stories in this collection are set in the Padma River region of East Bengal and reflect both his new understanding of peasants like those around him and his appreciation of a particularly beautiful part of his native land. Several of these stories are supernatural, such as "Skeleton," in which a female ghost appears to tell a story of love and death. Others resemble folktales; in "The Hungry Stones," a man in a railway waiting room describes events in a mysterious accursed palace, but before he can finish his narrative, a train arrives and he is shown to his compartment, leaving his audience in suspense. "Wishes Granted" is a moral tale like those found in every literary tradition. In it, a father and his son have their wishes granted by a passing divinity, only to find that they were better off before. However, though Tagore himself suggested in a much later interview that most of the early stories were simple re-creations of village life, in fact they are complex descriptions of human behavior, with ironic or tragic endings. One of the best known, "The Postmaster," is typical. The title character is a well-educated young man from Calcutta, who has been sent to work in a remote village. Ratan, the orphan girl he hires to do his housework, becomes his only companion, and he finds himself very much attached to her. He even begins teaching her to read. When he becomes ill, she nurses him back to health. However, soon afterwards he tells Ratan that he has resigned his position and will soon be leaving. To his amazement, she begs him to take her with him, but he refuses. He tries to make up for abandoning her by offering her money, but she will not take it. As his boat sails down the river, the young man consoles himself by musing on mutability, but Ratan is heartbroken. Though the author concludes by pointing out that we all allow our hearts to deceive us, in fact, like many of the other stories in this collection, "The Postmaster" is really about the exploitation of the innocent and good by those who are financially better off, more powerful, or just more heartless. Summary Rabindranath Tagore's poetry, his plays, his fiction, and his prose are all infused with the writer's belief that the goal of human life is union with the divine, a being who is always accessible in prayer and in nature. An obsession with material goods, social status, or power shrinks the soul and harms both other individuals and society as a whole. So do rampant nationalism and narrow adherence to religious creeds. Even though Tagore recognizes the fact that in this world the righteous often suffer, he believes that only a soul that is unpolluted can know the joy of that mystic union. His Bengali writings brought Tagore recognition as the father of modern Bengali literature. His English works and his translations made him famous throughout the world. However, it is not just his originality and his lyricism that account for the high regard in which he is still held. Above all, he is valued as a profound thinker and a deeply spiritual man. Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman BibliographyBy the Author Poetry: Saisab sangit, 1881 Sandhya sangit, 1882 Prabhat sangit, 1883 Chabi o gan, 1884 Kari o komal, 1887 Manashi, 1890 Sonar tari, 1893 (The Golden Boat, 1932) Chitra, 1895 Chaitali, 1896 Kanika, 1899 Kalpana, 1900 Katha o kahini, 1900 Kshanika, 1900 Naivedya, 1901 Sisu, 1903 (The Crescent Moon, 1913) Smaran, 1903 Utsarga, 1904 Kheya, 1905 Gitanjali, 1910 (Gitanjali Song Offerings, 1912) The Gardener, 1913 Gitali, 1914 Balaka, 1916 (A Flight of Swans, 1955, 1962) Fruit-Gathering, 1916 Gan, 1916 Stray Birds, 1917 Love’s Gift, and Crossing, 1918 Palataka, 1918 (The Fugitive, 1921) Lipika, 1922 Poems, 1922 Sisu bholanath, 1922 The Curse at Farewell, 1924 Prabahini, 1925 Purabi, 1925 Fifteen Poems, 1928 Fireflies, 1928 Mahuya, 1929 Sheaves: Poems and Songs, 1929 Banabani, 1931 The Child, 1931 Parisesh, 1932 Punascha, 1932 Vicitrita, 1933 Bithika, 1935 Ses saptak, 1935 Syamali, 1936 (English translation, 1955) Patraput, 1936, 1938 (English translation, 1969) Khapchada, 1937 Prantik, 1938 Senjuti, 1938 Navajatak, 1940 Rogsajya, 1940 Sanai, 1940 Arogya, 1941 Janmadine, 1941 Poems, 1942 Sesh lekha, 1942 The Herald of Spring, 1957 Wings of Death: The Last Poems, 1960 Devouring Love, 1961 A Bunch of Poems, 1966 One Hundred and One, 1967 Last Poems, 1973 Later Poems, 1974 Final Poems, 2001 Long Fiction: Bau-Thakuranir Hat, 1883 Rajarshi, 1887 Chokher bali, 1902 (Binodini, 1959) Naukadubi, 1906 (The Wreck, 1921) Gora, 1910 (English translation, 1924) Chaturanga, 1916 (English translation, 1963) Ghare baire, 1916 (Home and the World, 1919) Jogajog, 1929 Shesher kabita, 1929 (Farewell My Friend, 1946) Dui bon, 1933 (Two Sisters, 1945) Short Fiction: The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories, 1916 Mashi, and Other Stories, 1918 Stories from Tagore, 1918 Broken Ties, and Other Stories, 1925 The Runaway, and Other Stories, 1959 Selected Short Stories, 1991 (translated with an introduction by William Radice) Drama: Prakritir Pratishodh, pb. 1884 (verse play; Sanyasi: Or, The Ascetic, 1917) Raja o Rani, pb. 1889 (verse play; The King and the Queen, 1918) Visarjan, pb. 1890 (verse play; based on his novel Rajarshi; Sacrifice, 1917) Chitrangada, pb. 1892 (verse play; Chitra, 1913) Prayaschitta, pr. 1909 (based on his novel Bau-Thakuranir Hat) Raja, pb. 1910 (The King of the Dark Chamber, 1914) Dakghar, pb. 1912 (The Post Office, 1914) Phalguni, pb. 1916 (The Cycle of Spring, 1917) Arupratan, pb. 1920 (revision of his play Raja) Muktadhara, pb. 1922 (English translation, 1950) Raktakarabi, pb. 1924 (Red Oleanders, 1925) Chirakumar Sabha, pb. 1926 Natir Puja, pb. 1926 (Worship of the Dancing Girl, 1950) Sesh Raksha, pb. 1928 Paritran, pb. 1929 (revision of Prayaschitta) Tapati, pb. 1929 (revision of Raja o Rani) Bansari, pb. 1933 Chandalika, pr., pb. 1933 (English translation, 1938) Nritya-natya Chitrangada, pb. 1936 (revision of his play Chitrangada) Nritya-natya Chandalika, pb. 1938 (revision of his play Chandalika) Three Plays, pb. 1950 Nonfiction: Jivansmriti, 1912 (My Reminiscences, 1917) Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, 1913 Personality, 1917 Nationalism, 1917 Glimpses of Bengal, 1921 Greater India, 1921 Creative Unity, 1922 Talks in China, 1925 Lectures and Addresses, 1928 Letters to a Friend, 1928 The Religion of Man, 1931 Mahatmaji and the Depressed Humanity, 1932 The Religion of an Artist, 1933 Man, 1937 Chhelebela, 1940 (My Boyhood Days, 1940) Sabhyatar Samkat, 1941 (Crisis in Civilization, 1941) Towards Universal Man, 1961 Miscellaneous: Collected Poems and Plays, 1936 A Tagore Reader, 1961 About the Author Biswas, Renuka, ed. On Tagore. New York: Tagore Society of New York, 1984. Chatterjee, Bhabatosh. Rabindranath Tagore and Modern Sensibility. Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 1996. Datta, Pradip Kumar, ed. Rabindranath Tagore's "The Home and the World": A Critical Companion. London: Anthem Press, 2005. Dutta, Krishna, and Andrew Robinson. Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. Gupta, Uma Das. Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2004. Hogan, Patrick Colm, and Lalita Pandit, eds. Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003. Lago, Mary M. Rabindranath Tagore. Boston: Twayne, 1976. |
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