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

 

Sonnet 121: 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE detailed line by line analysis

 

Sonnet 121: 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

·      One of 154  sonnets

·      Member of the fair youth sequence

·      Poet expresses his love for the lover

POEM

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed

When not to be receives reproach of being,

And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed

Not by our feeling but by others' seeing.

For why should others’ false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad that I think good?

No, I am that I am; and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own:

I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;

By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,

    Unless this general evil they maintain:

    All men are bad and in their badness reign.

 

Explanation

·      Condemns hypocrisy and decides not to be  a hypocrite

·      Hypocrites forces us to lose out on life’s pleasures

·      Shakespeare suggests that it is better to be vile than to make people feel that one is vile

·      Because of fear of criticism by hypocrites, one doesn’t even get the pleasure of doing things that one likes

·      The poet questions why people who are corrupt themselves show eagerness in finding fault with others

·      Concludes by saying that the poet is straightforward and the hypocrites are crooked

·      The poet says that you cannot measure my actions by their foul thoughts, unless they are willing to believe that all men are bad and thrive in their badness

·      The speaker declares his intolerance to hypocrites who try to judge him

Themes

·      Judgement

·      Morality

·      Hypocrisy

Structure

·      ABAB CDCD EFEFF GG

·      Iambic Pentermeter

·      Typical Shakespearean Sonnet