''TAGORE'S CAREER AS AN INDIAN ENGLISH POET ''
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore |
Tagore's career as an Indian English poet began by sheer accident. In 1912, on the eve of his departure to England for medical treatment, he tried his departure to England for medical treatment, he tried his hand at translating some of his Bengali poems into English. The Manuscript, taken to England, was lost in the Tube railway, retrieved by Tagor's son 'Rathindranath, and came later to be rapturously hailed by William Rosenstein and W.B yeats. The rest is history. Gitanjali (1912) took the literary world London by storm and was followed in quick succession by The Gardener (1913) and The Crescent moon (1913). The award of the Nobel Prized came in the same year. More collection followed Fruit-Gathering (1916), Stary Bride (1916), Lover's and crossing (1918) and The Fugitive (1921). By this time Tagore's reputation in the England-speaking world had already suffered a disastrous decline. Only two more volume in England-speaking world already suffered a disastrous decline. Only two more volume in English appeared: Fireflies (1928) of which all the but all the last nine were translated by Tagore himself.
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagor with Albert Intestine |
The task of the assessment of Tagor as an Indian English poet is extremely difficult owing to a number of factors. First, the poet is extremely difficult owing to a number of factors. First, his literary reputation in the English-speaking world has swung to the two opposite extremes of temporary adulation and unthinking condemnation; and what is even more puzzling is that the most vociferous of his latter-day detractors - W.B Yeats and Ezra pound, for instance- were themselves his gushing admin earlier, second, Tagor's own view of his English verse is highly ambivalent. He writes to his niece,
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore with two unknown women |
"did not undertake this takes in a spirit of reckless bravado; I simply felt an urge; to recapture, through the medium of another language, the felling and sentiment which had created such a feast of joy within me in past days. And again, in another place. he declares, ' I was possessed by the pleasure of receiving anew my feeling as expressed in a foreign tongue. I was making fresh acquaintance with my own heart by dressing it in other cloth. At the same time, he also tells his niece. 'That I cannot write English is such a pattern fact that I never had even the vanity to feel ashamed of it. If anybody wrote an English note asking me to tea, I did not feel equal to answering it. perhaps you think that by now I have got over that delusion, but in no way am I deluded that I have composed in English.
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore with a women |
It is difficult to reconcile this with what Tagor has said earlier to his nicec in the same latter. Furthermore, Tagors Bengali critic- naturally special privilege usually find themselves compelled to judge his English verse only in comparison with the Bengali origin, and thus prejudge the issue of the real artistic worth of Tagore's English poetry ( which they generally declare to be inferior to the Bengali version). It is manifest that a just and fair assessment as Tagore as an Indian English poet is possible only when none is these factors are allowed to colours one's judgement. Tagore's English verse must be evaluated solely on the strength of the English text before us, both as regrade content and form, and every other consideration must be held irrelevant.
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore with an unknown women |
The central theme of Gitanjali, Tagor's finest achievement in English verse, is devotion and its motto is, ' I am here to sing three-song.' These songs, firmly rooted in the ancient tradition of Indian saint poetry, yeat reveals a highly personal quest for the Divine, characterized by a great variety of moods and approach. In his heart, the poet has 'cut' a path where the fall they feet.' Tagore's sees good as 'unbroken perfection', as the giver of
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| a picture of Rabindranath Tagore |
'simple greate gifts', 'infinite gifts' which' come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Age pass and still thou pourest and still there is room to fill.' But on occasion, he is also the 'king of the fearful night', armed with the 'mighty sword, flashing as fame, heavy as a bolt of thunder,' He is everywhere, the light of his music ' illumines the world'; 'every moment and every age, every day and every night, he comes, omes ever comes.' He is not to be found in the temple; he is there where the tiller is still the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.' Hence. deliverance is not for the poet in renunciation; for one need not give up this world itself a beautiful creation of God, in order to reach Him (this is one of the key ideas of all Tagore's work).
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore with two Indian women |
Hence again, mortality is no tragedy, for Death is no tragedy, for Death is only god's servant and messenger, and when he arrived, the poet can say, 'When I go from here let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable' (lines which were reportedly quoted by Wilfried Owen to his mother upon going to the war) The poet adds, "in this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have I caught fight of Him that is formless.
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore |
'But Tagore's pilgrimage is not entirely a comfortable pilgrimage of joy. There are moments of despair and frustration too, in it. At one place, the poet laments, 'He came and sat by my side but I work not, what a cruse sleep it was, O miserable me!... Alas, why are my night all thus lost?' He ruefully realizes that he is a prisoner, who forged his own chain ' very carefully'; and at another place, e watches helplessly as 'they break into my sacred shrine, strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed the offering from God's altar.' Pitifully, he prays to god to 'strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart' Tagor's final cry, however,, is; 'Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day back to their mountain nests let all my life take its voyage to his its eternal home in one salutation to thee.'
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore in a drama |
The hundred and odd pieces in Gitanjali, bound by the central thread of the devotion quest, exhibit a great variety of from also- a feature surprising ignored by those who have hastened to accuse Tagore of monotony. Apart from the fact that they vary substantially in length, according to idea and mood, they vary range from a brief lyric cry to the dramatic and from allegory to rhetorical flourish. The style to shows a corresponding variety of experience. in a moment of lyric intensity, it takes wing propelled by rhythmic repetition, alliteration and assonance,
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore in Santi Niketan |
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore |
whatever the mode of expression, there is always a verbal control, a precision of imagery and an unmistakable sense of discipline rhythm as in Whitman at his best, though the tone is far quieter, the harmonies more muted and the general impression one of delicacy and grace rather than energy and force.
The Gardener most presents Tagore, the poet of love. Possibly influenced by Browning of whom he was a great admirer, Tagore exhibits a Browningesque variety and complex in his love poetry, though his setting, unlike that of the British poet, is invariably rural and feudal. Like Browning, Tagore too is capable of both the subjective and objective approaches and can offer both a direct outpouring of emotion and the poetry of situations, of which the very first piece in the Gardener (The dialogue between the servant and the Queen) is a fine example.
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi |
Furthermore, unlikely most love poets ( and here his resemblance to Browning is specially marked). Tagore is able to present both the male and the female points of view in love. For love in Tagore, love has many facets. It can be an intense both the male and the female point of view in love. For love in Tagors, Love has many facets. It can be an intense and eager longing, an all-enveloping passion (like a bird losing its way I am caught), a force which compels total self- effacement even in male ('if you would have it so. I will end my singing.') It is a felt like a debilitating influence (Free me from the bonds of your sweetness, my love')
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| picture of Rabindranath Tagore with two chines women |
but it is fulfilment also ('for a few fragrant hours we two have been made immoral') In a moment of acute introspect, love is also seen as an evanescent spiritual essence that eludes human grasp ('I try to grasp the beauty: it eludes. me leaving only the body in my hands, Baffled and weary I come back'- a through that is strongly reminiscent of Browning's 'Two in the Campagna'), For the Tagore woman too, love has many mods and many voices. It is shy, timid and unspoken on the one hand ('For very shame, I could not say, "She is I, young travelling, She is I''') and capricious and self-willed on the other ('I sharply chid him and said,''Go''... I weep and ask heart, ''why does he not come back?'''). It involves both frustration ('your path lies open before you, but you have cut off my return') and complete Self-surrender (But the young Prince did pass by our door, and I flung the jewel from my breast before his path').
In form and style the Gardener makes no further advance on the other hand, there are already tell-tale signs of a tendency to a general slackening in rhythm, a relaxing of verbal discipline, a loss of spontaneity in rhythm, a relaxing of verbal discipline, a loss of spontaneity and freshness and occasion lapses in taste (e.g, 'saved from the shivering shame of the shelterless', LIV)
''THE VOICE OF RABINDRANATH''
In Tagore magic is, however, still strong enough in The Crescent Moon, the chief motif in which is childhood. The poetry of childhood is of two kinds: it may either offer the outsider's the adult view of the child, or the insider's- the child's point of view. Tagore attempts both with frequent success. Looking at the child with adult eyes, Tagore mostly gives us the typically romantic view of childhood, inevitably lapsing on occasion into the seashore' ('On the seashore of endless worlds children meet' an echo of which appears in Heart crane's poem, 'The everyday picture of children playing on the seashore with a cosmic and symbolic significance, producing one of his most memorable poems. The 'insider ' pieces reveal a true understanding of the child mind as in 'The wicked postman,
('Mother dear... Haven't you got from father today?... I myself will write all fathers letters... I shall write from A right up to K'); superior' ('Mother, your baby is stilly! She is so absolutely childish'); and 'Twelve o 'clock' ("if twelve o ' clock' can come in the night?'). It must. however, be noted that instances are not wanting, where the poet descends to the level of clever prettiness also, There is a greater variety of clever prettiness also, there is a greater variety of situation here than in The Garden, and a subdue, quite a humour is a new feature of the style.
''the song is sung by Rabindranath Tagore'
The later collection- Fruit-Gathering, Lover's Gift and Crossing and The Fugitive show a distinction in quality. Each, with its mixed fare, lacks the unity of theme of the earlier works. It is also clear that Tagore has, by now, become not only repetitive but state and has very little new to offer by way of thought, mood or technique. mostly gone too are the trenchancy of expression, the superb verbal control and the severe rhythmical discipline of the Gitanjali (an occasional flash like 'Rebelliously O put out the light in my house and your sky surprise me with its stars'- Lover's Gift, xxiii- only serves as a sad reminder of how much has irretrievably been lost).
only the Last poems reveals glimpses of a new development, Written in declining years and often from the sick-bed, some of them are frightening records of a grim struggle with pain, sorrow and disillusion, of a mind which at certain moment believed in earlier, though, Tagore's basic ideas remain the same. The two collection of free verse epigrams- Stray Birds and Fireflies- have undeservedly suffered neglect in the backwash of the west. Some of these chips from Tagore poetic workshop are the memorable utterance of alert, reflective mind steeped in Hindu though and at the same time keenly aware of the problems of the modern age. Apart from the delicate sensibility and the command of sharply visualized imagery of his best poetic, these epigrams often reveal a gift for ironic observation which has had little scope elsewhere in his verse.
'The Child' the only published poem of considerable poem of considerable length Tagore wrote directly in English (the Bengali version, Shishu Tirtha was was written later) was directly inspired by a performance of the Oberammergau passion play in Germany in 1930, though the 'leader ' in the poem was perhaps modelled on Gandhi. It was written at the request of a German film company which wanted from him a script for a pageant of India life, though the film was never produced. This is a rather conventional allegory in which 'the Man of Faith who leads the toiling and suffering multitudes on a long and arduous pilgrimage, is killed during the might by his despairing and impatient followers. They are later shocked at what they have done and panic, but the spirit of the victim leads them at dawn to a hut where a mother sits on a straw bed with a 'babe on her lap'. The poem concludes with the chorus, 'victory to Man, the new, the new-born, the everliving'. The crude symbolism, garish colour and general wordiness of 'The Child' stand in sharp contrast with the subtler effects of The Gitanjali.
''THE VOICE OF RABINDRANATH''
Tagore's verse in English ( as that in his mother tongue) is essentially lyrical in quality, though unlike in Bengali, it is not the song-lyric that he attempts here. (But at least one of the Gitanjali pieces has successfully been set to music- No LXV was one sung by Dame Isabella Thorndike.) His subject is the elemental subject of all lyrical Thorndike.) God, Nature, Love, the Child, Life and Death, and he brought to his treatment of them the born lyric poetic simplicity, sensuousness and passion. His is a poetic steeped in the Indian ethos, because he mostly from this source; God is no remote Absolute for him but is an entire embodying sat, chit, and Ananda; and the universe is a Joyous expression of god's play; evil is put part of the infinite Perfection; the finite world and the body are both real and good, and human love a step to divine; man must remain close to Nature of nature is a manifestation of the Divine; all misery arises out of self-will and the antidote to these is universal brotherhood. As Jawaharlal Nehru put it, 'He was in line with the rishis, the great saga of India, drawing from the wisdom of the ancient past and giving it a practical garb and meaning in the present. Thus, he gave India's own message in a new language in keeping with the yuga-dharma, the spirit of the times.
Tagore's style, at its very best, Skilfully controls the pliant rhythm of free verse combining 'the feminine grace of poetry with the virile power of prose. It is a style that derives its strength from the subtly controlled tension between its easy, colloquial idiom and stark simplicity on the one hand, and the antique flavour of archaisms like 'thee' and 'thou' and the strange colourfulness of the feudal imagery of king and prince, chariot and sword, garland and gold, on the other. Tagore's of course, a very unequal poet. His fatal fluency often led to repetition and verbosity, sentimentality and vacuity, But this should not eclipse the shining authenticity of The Gitanjali. At his best, Tagore remains a poet with a delicate sensibility deeply Indian in spirit.
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