Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore Introduction, Tagore as a mystic

 

Gitanjali Introduction

Rabindranath Tagore(1861-1941

§  Bengali poet, short story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist and painter

§  He introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical sanskrit

§  He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the west and vice versa

§  Outstanding creative artist of twentieth century

§  In 1913, he became the first non European to recive the Nobel Prize for Literature

Works

§  Sonar Tari

§  Chitrangada

§  My Reminiscences (1917)

§  The Evening Song

§  The morning Song

§  Gora

§  The Home and the World

§  The Gardner (love lyrics)

§  The Crescent Moon (songs about children)

§  Fruit Gathering

§  Love’s Gift and Crossing

§  The Fugitive and other poems

§  Rabindra Sangeet (2230)

Gitanjali / Song Offerings

§  Tagore’s crowning achievement

§  Was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913

§  A selection of poems presenting a synthesis of material and spiritual life, in which the poet sees the reaization of God through his 103 songs

§  W B Yeats wrote introduction of Gitanjali

§  The Gitanjali was first published in the Bengali language in 1910. the English version was published in 1912, with translation by Tagore himself.

Tagore as a mystic

§  Paula Hayes, while trying to seek religious explanation of naturalism in Gitanjali says that repetition of nature motif is rooted in cosmogony of Rig Veda. Tagore was deeply interested in the cosmological origin of universe

§  Mystical spirituality of Tagore is not mysticism or irrational. His ecstatic worship is meditative. Reason is to culminate and assert divine love

§  Throughout the Gitanjali Tagore expresses a joyful personalized spirituality with emphasis on devotion faith and an individual’s relationship with the divine in contrast with official rules and practices of orthodox religion.

§  Although the poems in the English language edition comes from various sources, they can be understood with a narrative arc