TAGORE'S CONTRIBUTION IN INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH AS A POET

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Name: Divya choudhary

Course : M.A English

Topic : Tagore's contribution in Indian writing in english as a poet

Semester   : 01

Roll No      : 07

Paper No   : 4

Paper Name : India Writing in English

Enrolment No: 15101007

Email ID    : choudharydivya400@gmail.com

BatchYear   : 2015-17

Submitted To: Department Of English                     

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Æ     TAGORE'S CONTRIBUTION IN INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH AS A POET

He was born in Calcutta in 6th of may 1861. If he was fortunate in the time of his birth, when such a flowering season lay before his native tongue, in his family be had a gift which cannot overestimated. He was born a Tagore: That is, he was born into the family in which he could experience the national life at its very fullest and freest. He was born into the great rambling mention at JORASANKO, in the heart of Calcutta's teeming life. Rabindranath declined to be educated. His first experience of school distressed him, but he escaped the ordinary routine of Indian school life, and his education was desultory, even when his fame was long established, a Calcutta journal demurred to the suggestion that he could be an examiner, In the matriculation of all examinations on the ground that he was 'Not a Bengali scholar'. His autobiography rejoices in the mighty hills, which cast spell on his soul beyond another. It is very noticeable vaster many festations had exercised over Rabindranath. No poet has felt more deeply and constantly the fascination of the great spaces of Earth and Sky, the boundless risen and white lights of evening, the expanse of moonlight. To the way these have touched him with peace and the power of beauty a thousand passages in his work bear witness. Mountains touched his imagination comparatively little. He would not be Rabindranath if he had not laid them under contribution of furnish pictures.

...The great forest trees were found clustering closer, and from underneath their shade a little waterfall trickling out, a little daughter of the hermitage playing at the feet of hoary sages rapt in meditation [My Reminiscences].

But that is not the language of the man on whose Soul the great mountains have thrown their shadow, so that be loves them to the end. It has but to be placed besides the authentic utterance to be seen for what it is, a graceful image which the mind has gathered for itself outside itself. Rabindranath loved nature but it was nature as she comes close to the habitations of men. His rivers are not left for long without a scale on their surfaces; they flow by meadow and pasture. His flowers and bees are in garden and orchard; His forest is at the Hamlet's door. His fellowmen were a necessity to him. Author of GITANJALI and its profoundly sensitive fresh and beautiful worse, he became the first non- European to win the noble prize in literature in 1913. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial, however his elegant prose and magical poetry remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was highly influential and in introducing the best of Indian culture to the west and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of the modern Indian subcontinent. He wrote poetry from childhood at the age of sixteen be released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhanusimha which were seized upon the literary authorities as a long last classics. His compositions were choosen by two nations as national Anthems: India's JAN-GAN-MAN and Bangladesh's AMAR SHONAR BANGLA. The lyrics and music for the original songs of Shrilanka's Anthem were also the work of Tagore. Jyotindranath one of his brothers was a musician, composer and a play writer. Jyotindranath's wife Kadambri, slightly older than Tagore was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884 soon after he married, left him for years profoundly distraught. In 1901 Tagore moved to Shantiniketan to found an Ashram with a marble floored prayer hall-the mandir-an experimental school- groves of tress, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died his father died in 1905. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free worse. Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than 30 countries on  5 continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protigue Charles Fandrews, Irish poets, W B Yeats, Easra Pound, Robert Bridges, Earnest Rhys, Thomas Sterg Moore and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali. Tagore's poetic style which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th and 16th century vaishnav poets ranges from classical formalism to the comic visionary and ecstatic. He was influenced by the Atavistic mysticism of Vyas and other rishi authors of the Upanishads, the bhakti sufi mystic  Kabir and Ramprasad change. His most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music which includes mystic baul Bullads such as those of Bard Lalon. During his Shiyaldah years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the Moner Manush, the bauls "Man within the heart" and Tagore's "Life force of his deep recesses" or meditating upon the jivandevta- the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Mainly his inspiration came from the people and life around him. He was also got enough inspiration from Bhagwadgita. Tagore's poetry was influenced by traditional Indian poetry for example- the devotional Indian poets of Ramprasad and Kabir especially influenced his early poetry works. Later he was influenced by the baul tradition which is a traditional Bengali folk music, known for its simple ballads and invocation to union with the beloved. He also studied the Upanishads, languages and modern sciences. The poet's early life was spent in an atmosphere of religion and arts principally literature, music and painting. Tagore's philosophies and way of living was heavily influenced by the concept of Vedas and Upanishads. In music Tagore's training was classical Indian, though as a composer, be rebelled against the Tarang of classical orthodoxy, and introduced many variations of form and phrase notably form Bengali folk music and the baul and bhatiyali type. all these were his inspirations. His selfless work and ideology made him what he became. throughout Tagore's work there is strong mystical element although it is worth nothing Tagore rarely referred to God directly. " When the voice of the silent touches my words, I know him and therefore know myself." For Tagore, beauty and beauty's appreciation was of his life and Sadhana and this was reflected in his poetry.

"Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony

which is in a universal being;

Truth the perfect comprehension of the universal mind."

Tagore kept writing poetry throughout his life. In the evening of his life, when he suffered various illness, be became concered with the theme of death and man's immorality.

"The night is black and the forest has no end;

A million people thread it in a million ways

We have trysts to keep in the darkness,

but where or with whom- that a lifetime's bliss  will

appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips."

- R. Tagore 'On the Nature of Love'

The idea that he would have the fascinating experience of seeing it grow and then flower and bear fruit. This was, of course, a wish which could not be consummated when the seed happened to be sown on a fistful of soil inside the house. the experience struck in his mind so deeply that it reappeared as the theme of a poem written in his old age. During his early boyhood, Rabindranath was placed under the charge of private tutors to learn his lessons. At times, such lessons proved so being to him that he would usually play on such occasions was  to feign that he was suffering from stomach ache. He would plead to his mother for exemption from taking lessons. The scenic beauty of rural Bengal had its impact on his poetry too and it became a new subject for treatment in his poems. The specific charm of the poems of Sonar Tari is evidently derived from this source. The image of a boat plied by a mystical figure that haunts the last poem of his collection was evidently inspired by the long boat journey's on the Padma. It also appears that on entire book of verses called Chaitali was the gift of his land of beauty. It records the scenic beauty and petty village incidents in such meticulous details that they appear to take shape before the readers eyes. The conflicting moods are discernible in the poems of Chitra written in 1896.  He gave vent to his resentment on seeing the miserable existence of rural labourers by writing the steering poem Ebar Firao more which finds place in Chitra. During the rainy season, Mrinalini Devi was ill at Shantiniketan  and diseases could not be cured by Local Doctors so she was removed to the family house of Jorasanko for better medical attention. After a protected illness patiently born, Mrinalini Devi expired on November 23, 1902. The grief that flooded his heart on this occasion however found expression in secret in a series of poems written at a stretch within two months of his wife's death. Soon after they were published in the form of a book titled Samran. The book was not directly dedicated to Mrinalini Devi but on the page unmarked for dedication, it simply quoted the date of her death. This book contributed to Bengali literature on one of the best collections of poems dealing with the tragedy of a beloved, and stands comparison with other similar books in literature world. One of it poems has been translated into English by the poet himself and given a place in his English Gitanjali. The poem gives a vivid picture of the agony of his heart when he misses her in the house and seeks consolation by dipping his emptied life in the ocean of eternity. Tagore develops a love for the religion founded by his father. be used to compose rhymes to be sung during prayers and such contributions have been assigned on honourable place on the compilation of Hymns brought and by his community charmed by a particular hymn, his father on one occasion expressed his monetary reward. Tagore says that the search is for the e inspiration for the spiritual self realisation has also for his poetry being a same what be discovered at the end of his lifelong quest was truly a poet's religion the fact that a common theme provided inspiration to both his religion and poetry imports two rare qualities to the latter. First his poetry has a dynamic quality; has a history and his developed through different phases to maturity. In Tagore's poems, a continuous growth can be praised from his earliest writings. The second quality imparted by the common theme is that his poetry becomes a written record of his religious experience. in its mature form, therefore it gives a picture of his own idea what religion should be. In 1940, Oxford University arranged a special ceremony Shantiniketan to honour the poet with Doctorate of Literature. Tagore passed way on 7 August 1941. In his ancestral home in Calcutta, the house where he was born. Tagore influenced many poets and literary figures. Early admirers included W B Yeats and Romaine Rolland. His poetry was also appreciated by Spanish poets such as Nobel Laureates: Gabriella Mistral, Pablo Neruda and Octavia Paz. Tagore's reputation as a writer was established in the United States and in England after the publication of Gitanjali: Songs offering which Tagore tried to find inner calm and explored the theme of divine and human love. The poems were translated into English by Tagore himself. His comic visions on much to the lyric tradition of Vaishnava Hinduism and its concepts about the relationship between Man and God. Much of Tagore's ideology comes from the Upanishad's and from his own beliefs that God can be found through personal purity and service to others. Be stressed the need for the new world over based on transnational values and ideas, the "Unity consciousness" between the years 1916-1934 be travelled widely, attempting to spread the ideal of unity of East and West. One of the famous poems of Rabindranath Tagore is-

Where the mind is without fear

and the head is held high,

Where knowledge is free,

Where the world has not been

broken by fragments into narrow domestic walls.

Where words come out from the depth of the truth,

Where tireless striving stretches

its arms towards perfection.

Where the clear stream of reason

has not lost its way

into the dreary desert sand of dead habit,

where the mind is lead forward by thee.

Into ever widening action thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom

My Father, let my country awake.

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