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Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse" of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European as well as the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal".
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, Universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Books by Rabindranath Tagore
The Sadhana: Realisation of Life
Sadhana is a collection of essays, most of which he gave before the Harvard University, describing Indian beliefs, philosophy and culture from different viewpoints, often making comparison with Western thought and culture.
Gitanjali
Gitanjali is a collection of poems by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature, largely for the English translation, Song Offerings. It is part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. Its central...
Sadhana, the Realisation of Life
Sadhana is a collection of essays, most of which he gave before the Harvard University, describing Indian beliefs, philosophy and culture from different viewpoints, often making comparison with Western thought and culture.
Creative Unity
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore talks of the many things he feels is necessary for creativity through joy of unity, he covers many topics like the creative ideal, makes comparisons of creativity between the east and the west, the spirit of freedom and ab...
The Crescent Moon
This is a wonderful collection of lyrical poetry and poetry in prose by India's most well-known poet, Rabindranath Tagore, whose book Gitanjali shot him to fame in the west. Originally written in Bengali, the poet himself translated the book into Eng...
My Reminiscences
These Reminiscences were written and published by the Author in his fiftieth year, shortly before he started on a trip to Europe and America for his failing health in 1912. It was in the course of this trip that he wrote for the first time in the Eng...
The Hungry Stones And Other Stories
'The Hungry Stones and Other Stories' is a collection of thirteen soul-stirring short stories by Tagore. Each and every one of the stories is aesthetically appealing, which vividly portrays every small aspect of human life in great detail.
Glimpses of Bengal
This beautifully written letters showcases the lyrical and poetic rhythm of Tagore ‘s writing as he traverses Bengal and waxes eloquently on nature, life and living. The imagery is fantastic, his way with words strikes a chord and the simplest occur...
XVIII
This poem reflects Tagore's thoughts and musings on love, life, and the complexities of the human experience. Tagore, often referred to as the "Bard of Bengal," was a prolific writer who produced an extensive body of work in his lifetime. He is rega...