Page 197 - DENG203_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_IV

Elective English—IV

Notes 10.7 Summary

Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate poet, writer, philosopher was the ambassador of
Indian culture to the rest of the world. He is probably the most prominent figure in the
cultural world of Indian subcontinent and the first Asian person to be awarded with the
Nobel Prize.
Rabindranath Thakur (1861-1941) born on Tuesday, 7th May 1861 in a wealthy family in
Calcutta was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region’s literature and music. Author
of Gitanjali and its “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse”, he became the first
non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

The youngest of thirteen surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in
Calcutta, India to parents Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
The Tagore family came into prominence during the Bengal Renaissance that started
during the age of Hussein Shah (1493–1519).

Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his
father travelled widely. His home hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre
and recitals of both Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly, as the
Jorasanko Tagores were the centre of a large and art-loving social group. Tagore’s oldest
brother Dwijendranath was a respected philosopher and poet.
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.
Tagore was a prolific composer with 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 lyricised.

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 colour blind,
resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics.

At sixteen, Tagore led his brother Jyotirindranath’s adaptation of Molière’s Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme. At twenty he wrote his first drama-opera: Valmiki Pratibha (The Genius of
Valmiki).
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita,
Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens
of the idealistic zamindar 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.
Tagore’s three-volume Galpaguchchha comprises eighty-four stories that reflect upon the
author’s surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on mind puzzles.
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.
On 25 March 2004, Tagore’s Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-
Bharati University, along with several others of his personal belongings.

192 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY