Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore FRAS (/rəˈbɪndrənɑːt tæˈɡɔːr/ ; pronounced [roˈbindɾonatʰ ˈʈʰakuɾ];[1] 7 May 1861[2] – 7 August 1941[3]) was an Indian poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renaissance.[4][5][6] 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" poetry of Gitanjali,[7] in 1913 Tagore became the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.[8] Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; where his elegant prose and magical poetry were widely popular in the Indian subcontinent.[9] He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal",[10][5][6] Tagore was known by the sobriquets Gurudeb, Kobiguru, and Biswokobi.[a]
For the film, see Rabindranath Tagore (film).
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
7 May 1861
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
(present-day Kolkata, West Bengal, India)
7 August 1941 (aged 80)
Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Bhanusimha
- Poet
- novelist
- writer
- dramatist
- essayist
- story-writer
- playwright
- composer
- philosopher
- social reformer
- educationist
- linguist
- grammarian
- painter
British India (1861–1941)
5, including Rathindranath Tagore
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district[12] and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.[13] 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.[14] By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent critic of nationalism,[15] 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 his founding of Visva-Bharati University.[16][17]
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 also inspired by his work.[18] His Song "Banglar Mati Banglar Jol" has been adopted as the state anthem of West Bengal.
There are eight Tagore museums, three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane[187] Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007.[188] It is the house in which Tagore was born, and also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Analyses
Audiobooks
Texts
Talks