Page 141 - DENG202_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_III

Elective English—III

Notes the essential unity in the midst of diversity, and in the divine spirit that “rolls through all
things” Wordsworth displays a greater affinity of spirit with Rabindranath than any other
English poet. The oriental mystic thinks that the world is all Maya and illusion, and tries to
pierce through this deceptive curtain and look beyond into the transcendental reality. Tagore’s
understanding of this reality, of our transcendental union with the eternal and divine being,
apart from its specific Eastern element, bears a close resemblance to Wordsworth’s perception of
the divine.
Rabindranath, like Keats, was not content with merely expressing the accepted moral truths. His
contemplative imagination discerned truth in beauty. Rabindranath in his lecture on “The Sense
of Beauty” actually quotes Keats in expounding his own ideas regarding the relationship of
Truth and Beauty.

Rabindranath, in Gitanjali and several other poems has sung of the relationship between our
being and infinitude. In Gitanjali, Rabindranath writes, “He (God) is there where the tiller is
tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking the stones. He is with them in sun
and shower, and his garment is covered with dust….Meet him and stand by him in toil and in the
sweat of thy brow.”
If in his mystical, rendering of the transcendental unity, Rabindranath recalls the ideas poetically
expressed by Wordsworth, in his passionate singing of and devotion to the idea of liberty he
shows an affinity of spirit with Shelley and Byron.
Although Tagore does not clearly attempt to fit the doctrines of evolution and other scientific
ideas into his transcendental scheme, as Walt Whitman does, he nevertheless comes close to
Whitman in expressing his impatience with the stark and bare facts of science. Tagore reveals his
sense of impatience with the dry details of astronomy by quoting Walt Whitman’s well-known
poem “When I heard the learned astronomer.” His comments on Whitman’s poem clearly
indicate his relationship with the spirit of the great American poet. Tagore writes, “The prosody
of the stars can be explained in the classroom by diagrams, but the poetry of the stars is in the
silent meeting of soul with soul….”

The affinity of the spirit between Walt Whitman and Tagore strikes a much deeper note. Whitman
is a singer and prophet of American democracy while Tagore is the singer of Indian Renaissance
and of his country’s political fate. For instance, Tagore wrote a number of poems inspired by the
threat of partition of Bengal in 1905-09.
It is pertinent to note that Romanticism in Rabindranath is observed in moving away from
impersonal objectivity to an inwardly felt individuality, from the old Sanskrit classical order to
the new notion of intensity, from a self-conscious creative originality, from prosaic directness in
expression to myth, image and symbol.
As a poet, Tagore sets for himself a definite objective, that is, to sing about the tremendous
mystical experiences of the sages. These experiences, which can have no rational claims, and
cannot be logically understood, have an irresistible appeal for him essentially because of the
unique similarity between the sensibilities of the ancient sages and that of the poet who
acknowledges that “in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry I want thee, only thee.”
Much of Tagore’s ideology came from the teaching of the Upnishads and his own beliefs that
god can be found through personal purity and service to others. He stressed the need for new
world order based on transnational values and ideas, and the faith in “the unity of
consciousness.”
Tagore was a pure poet and not a theorist who would formulate a rigid system to describe the
mystical experiences, which have for him a great emotive value. Unlike many mystics, who
believe in the possibility of merging into the Absolute, Tagore always maintains a safe distance
between “Thou and me.”

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