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Rabindranath Tagore was
the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo
Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal
and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of
Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at
home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal
schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years,
in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the
family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with
common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He
also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried
his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he
participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own
non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father
of modern India, was his devoted friend. In 1913 He became the first
Asian to receive Nobel Prize for literature. Tagore was knighted by
the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he
resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.
Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his
translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the
West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across
continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world
he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India,
especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.
Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was
first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are
Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari (1894) [The
Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings], Gitimalya
(1914) [Wreath of Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of
Cranes]. The English renderings of his poetry, which include The
Gardener (1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The
Fugitive (1921), do not generally correspond to particular
volumes in the original Bengali; and in spite of its title,
Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them,
contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore's major
plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber],
Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan
(1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall],
and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the
author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels,
among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The
home and the World], and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents].
Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all
types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle
years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also
left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote
the music himself.
Rabindranath Tagore died in 1941.
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