Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861 and died in 1941. He 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. 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), Gitimalya (1914), 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), Muktadhara
(1922), 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), and
Yogayog (1929). 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.
