Geethanjali
Essay Preview: Geethanjali
Report this essay
Rabindranath Tagore ([ɹobin̪d̪ɾonat̪ʰ ʈʰakuɹ] or [taˈgɔ(ɹ)] (help*info);[α] Bangla: রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর (help*info);[β] 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941[γ]), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev,[δ] was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj (syncretic Hindu monotheist) philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A cultural icon of Bengal and India, he became Asias first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.
A Pirali Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta (Kolkata), India, Tagore first wrote poems at age eight. He published his first substantial poetry–under the pseudonym Bhanushingho (“Sun Lion”)–in 1877 and wrote his first short stories and dramas at age sixteen. His home schooling, life in Shilaidaha, and travels made Tagore a nonconformist and pragmatist ; however, growing disillusionment with the British Raj caused Tagore to back the Indian Independence Movement and befriend Mahatma Gandhi. Tagores life was tragic–he lost virtually his entire family and was devastated to witness Bengals decline–but his lifes work endured, in the form of his poetry and the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.
Tagores works included Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World). His verse, short stories, and novels–many defined by rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation–received worldwide acclaim. Tagore was also a cultural reformer and polymath who modernised Bangla art by rejecting strictures