1861–1941 Poet, essayist, playwright, musician, painter Author of , Sandhya Sangeet, “Sheshlekha,” , Ghare-Baire, Nrityanatya Chitrangada, “Kalantar,” Arogya, Janamadine, “Nationalism,” “Personality,” “Religion of Man,” “Sadhana” M K Raina, National Council of Educational Research and Training, New Delhi, India

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Described as a “world poet,” RABINDRANATH TAGORE is con- fourteenth child (of 15 children), eighth son of his parents. sidered a puzzling ecumenical figure, a paradigm of human possibil- The youngest child, however, died in early infancy, making ity, a mystery, and a complex challenge of creativity who exemplified Tagore both the youngest child and the youngest son of the total creativity, unique and rare. As “Rabindranath” he was an family. Neither of the parents established any personal inti- Indian writer, as “Tagore” he was an international figure. He is macy with him and early in life he lost his mother. There had known for his poetry, particularly “Gitanjali” (), never been that clinging affection between the mother and the which made him suddenly famous and brought him the Nobel son that would leave a void behind. But the thirst for mother’s Prize for literature in 1913, the second writer in English to be thus affection, never quenched in childhood, was to survive in the awarded after Kipling. One of the greatest literary figures in history, son as a constant longing for feminine affection and care. Tagore was a master of several literary forms. He experimented with However, his father, known for contemplative inwardness, many forms of art and sought an outlet first in music, then in drama, had the most abiding influence over the son. The influence opera, and ballet and toward the end of his life in painting. Tagore had obvious manifestations later. was a consummate histrionic artist, a playwright and producer of Tagore grew in a lonely and somewhat isolated family plays. He also inspired and directed the revival and full development where literature, music, and painting were prized. The family of the art of dance in modern India. Tagore is remarkable for his was notable for the extraordinary concatenation of a variety of versatility, extraordinary range, and complexity of creative perspec- talents in its members. The house where he spent his child- tive. As a high priest of internationalism and the author of the hood as a lonely outcast, a shy and quiet child, was to him national anthems of two countries, his spirited protests against the tranquil and secluded. The family provided the right environ- inequities and cruelties of British and other forms of imperialism and ment for Tagore to discover two of the major motives of his repression have a permanent place in history. creative life: joy and mystery. The sense of wonder and mystery that for him pervaded the world of nature and men–the yearning for that mysterious world, the instinctive delight in the smallest and most common place things experienced in childhood–became for him a lifelong spiritual treasure. Though he attended several schools, Tagore was allergic to formal schooling, which distressed him. His education remained desultory and ultimately he became a dropout. The education that he received at home was quite thorough. More valuable than what he was taught, was what he breathed in, as it were, from the atmosphere of the house, where Vedic chants could be heard along with readings from Shakespeare and Marlowe; where Indian classical music, vocal and instrumental, was seriously practiced while European music was also studied, where the family had its own drama group and compositions and collections of costumes; where a lively intellectual and spiritual endeavor was pursued with easy grace. Therefore, it is no surprise that this solitary and sensitive truant proved a Rabindranath Tagore. recalcitrant boy who became a rebellious youth without the modicum of respect for tradition that normal systematic schooling imposes on an average adult. Background Tagore admitted “the torn and the incomplete” in his makeup. He had a spate of bereavements and private and Rabindranath Tagore, the product of history and of the social public disappointments, which could not stigmatize his environment, was fortunate that at the time of his birth work. Creative in crisis, the magic of his creativity hides the currents of three movements had met in the life of the country. fact that it came out of a matrix not unaware of the tragic and He was born in Calcutta on May 6, 1861, and was the the terrible.

e80 Rabindranath Tagore 1861–1941 e81

The Complexity of Tagorean Creativity The Creative Purpose

When Tagore began his career, he was, as he put it, ridiculously Tagore’s purpose in undertaking creative enterprises emerged young; in fact, he was the youngest of that band who had made out of his concern for celebration of spirit and the infinite. themselves articulate. He had neither the protective armor of He wrote that the desire we have to keep our uniqueness mature age, nor enough English to command respect. So in his intact is really the desire of the universe acting in us. It is our seclusion of contempt and qualified encouragement he had joy of the infinite in us that gives us our joy in ourselves. his freedom. Therefore, we must express ourselves strenuously in our life As he grew in years, he steadily cut his way through derision and work in “outward excursions.” The joy, which is without and occasional patronage to recognize that the proportion form, must create, must translate itself into forms. He, there- of praise to blame was very much like that of land to water fore, was sovereignly aware of the fact that “from joy are born on our earth. The Nobel Prize, which he was awarded in 1913, all created things etc.” Though multitudinously various, brought to him “an immense burden of loneliness.” This was Tagore gave a touch of completeness, an enormous unity, not only the recognition of his literary achievements but was like the unity of a lyric, to his life. His life, it has been also evidence of the impact of his personality on western con- noted, was in fact, Tagore’s greatest work. When his other temporaries. During the World War I and for more than a works are forgotten, his life will remain unforgettable because decade thereafter, Tagore was hailed by the West and the East it is a true and silent answer to the most inward question alike as a seer and a sage. Receiving the Nobel Prize was a of humankind: “How am I to live?” It has been noted that turning point of his life. everything Tagore did and wrote bore the mark of his obses- His career and creative enterprises were largely conditioned sion with the maturing of the body and soul, toward the by many influences and traditions, indigenous and foreign. His extension and intention, or renewal, of his own personality reason, personal will, and psyche only determined the form as a human being. He always aimed higher and higher, “The and character of this conditioning. Besides being influenced by song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.” His long Upanishads, Tagore was influenced by Buddhism, classical San- life was densely packed with growth, activity, and self- skrit and English literature, Sufism, the Vaishnava poets, the renewal. He believed that in his creativity, one realized the submerged cultures of the rural agricultural folk and the Bauls, supreme person (Jivan–Devata) who has made the universe so the itinerant singers who observed no formalities and were personal to humankind. untouchables wandering from village to village, singing and dancing and taking delight in the ever-changing play of life. Tagore’s subconscious identification with the Baul credo was The Tagorean Peaks almost perfect. These influences, in addition to the Indian reality, “Thou who are the spirit of manifestation, manifest thyself moulded his worldview. Tagore’s life pattern was essentially in me.” This Upanishadic prayer was one of Tagore’s favorite melodic and his creative genius had many facets, permeated quotations. This prayer, in Tagore’s case, was answered with the idea of national liberation, of the struggle for the through diverse, multiple, continuous, and simultaneous liter- spiritual and political liberation from the yoke of colonialism ary enterprises. Poetry and the poetic consciousness was, of and feudal survivals. Tagore’s multiple creative dimensions, course, the animating principle in his extraordinary variety. issued from the same source and together formed an organic In 1893, Tagore wrote: whole. While not denying the usefulness of expressions like “Tagore the poet,” “the essayist,” or “the playwright,” we must The moment I begin to write poetry, I enter into my true self: true for recognize that they overlap and interpenetrate and refer fun- all time. I distinctly feel that there lies my true home. Poetry is the damentally to one unvariable reality. However, studying sole refuge of all deepest truths of my life. Tagore in a holistic framework involves risks and challenges not only of one man’s astonishing career but of a vast and In May 1892 he wrote that the joy of writing one poem far intricate network of intercultural relationships. To compress exceeds that of writing sheaves and sheaves of prose. “If I could Tagore’s versatility into a relatively brief account is to risk only write one poem a day.” He almost did that. Tagore, even leading the reader with diffuse impressions that do the subject before he was 20 years old, had published approximately less than full justice. 11,000 lines of verse which, with real good sense, he never Tagore’s complexity and extraordinariness was not of one reprinted. Before Tagore was 18 years old, he had published kind, nor did he satisfy the demand for continuous develop- nearly 7000 lines of verse, and a great quantity of prose. ment. It was a devious and diverse development, which defeats Closely related to poetry, another creative enterprise that dis- the too systematic critic at every turn. It has been noted that a tinguished Tagore’s uniqueness was his incomparable songs. paraphrastic, chronological account would be tedious and lit- It was natural that he was attracted by a form of music that tle more than a catalog. Tagore’s growth was not linear. Tagore stressed the union of verse and melody. In the diversity of was many poets in one, and not easy to track or label. His their mode and theme, these formed a class apart. The creative development did not have straightforward continuity and in delight he discovered in his early musical experiments stayed fact overflowed the logical pattern of growth– it was instead a with him until the very end of his life. When he was nearly stage-wise progression. In short, Tagore’s development was 16 years old, he took liberties with the classical tradition and not unilinear. composed more than 2000 songs. From early boyhood e82 Rabindranath Tagore 1861–1941 onward his music had the quality of profundity not inferior to hardly conducive to meditative or creative moods. Besides the quality of his poetry. these preoccupations and pressures, it has been noted that at In Tagore’s career as a composer of music, the last 20 years times the poet lost to the prophet, the singer to the preacher, of his life–from 1921, when he started composing his life and thus the resultant cyclicity. series of songs on the seasons, to a few weeks before his The last 10 years of Tagore’s life opened a new phase of death–were the richest, both in quantity and quality. Indeed creativity: new but not inherently unconnected from his ear- this was the period when Tagore built the edifice that has now lier phases. Tagore felt certain that for him poet-nature was come to be known as or the Tagore school of not his sole function in life. It was through painting that Indian music. This was also the period when Tagore effected Tagore found the release that he could not quite achieve in a perfect integration of music and dance, one interpreting poetry. Tagore recalled the Indian theory of creation as play and contributing to the other and thus expanding the horizon (leela) and claimed that he was beating the creator at his own of both, which opened up new possibilities and generated game and creating forms that missed their chance in actual new enterprises. During the 1925 and 1931 phases, his songs existence since God did not provide a place for them. Thus came to have a wide thematic range, variety, innovation, and his recourse to another aesthetic medium helped the poet fill the creation of new beat–rhythms or tala. Tagore’s prose was in the lacunae in his poetical work. From 1928 to 1940 he as much a poet’s work as was his verse. In him the poet and painted more than 2000 pictures apart from his other work, the prose writer were inseparable and mutually complemen- his travels, the ever increasing calls on his time, and the tary, which means that we cannot assess the one without darkening crises of the 1930s. considering the other. The dramatic form interested Tagore As if Tagore could not have achieved permanence through very early in his career as a writer. He wrote more than his ceaseless creative activity in literature, music, and painting, 40 works of drama. his energy found expression in the experimental work that he Tagore wrote several novels but this work, it is felt as a undertook in the field of social reconstruction and the ideas whole, may not claim to have attained the stature of his best and ideologies that inspired and motivated them. Rehabilita- poetry. Yet the novels are no less trendsetters in the unconven- tion of village and rural economy, the cooperative movement, tionality of themes, complexity of characterization, and poetic, working out new principles and methods, and evolving a often symbolic, language. The poet, the singer, and the teacher national system of education, ideas and speculations on the constantly meddled with the novelist and lured him away from contemporary political life in India and on nationalism and concentration on one plot or one set of characters. internationalism–these were again a part of his mind and Tagore wrote an infinite variety of stories: comedies, trage- personality. His creative vision prompted him to ask questions dies, fantasies, and parables. Some are short novels, others about God, life, and death, and to answer them by evolving a long short stories. Apart from fiction and drama, Tagore’s religion of man. Tagore sought to give tangible form to his prose falls into a number of formal dimensions: belles letters, ideas on education and socioeconomic reconstruction by literary criticism, essays on subjects other than literature, travel establishing and funding institutions like Santiniketan (Abode writing, autobiography, and finally letters. These divisions, of Peace) and Sriniketan (Institute for Rural Upliftment). For however, are far from being rigid, for Tagore had a way of Tagore, this enterprise was not unrelated to that of the creative transcending rules and definitions. These kinds of writings writer and artist. It was intimately related to his total creative are thus interrelated, and the relation between them and personality and spiritual being. He described Vishvabharti Tagore’s poetry is regarded as quite palpable. The letters (World University) as his “tangible poem.” by Tagore that have so far been published in book form com- From 1912 to 1932 Tagore undertook 10 foreign tours and prise 11 volumes. He wrote thousands of other letters, which lectured in major cities of Europe, Asia, and North and South served very well as an effective means of expressing his per- America. He lectured on the problems of power, militarism, sonal and private musings and thoughts, his dreams and war, and the decay of civilization through the human search visions on a variety of subjects and issues that interested him. for comfort and a consumer culture. A considerable part of He also wrote a large number of essays and addresses on a these travels and sojourns was taken up by his attempts to variety of subjects, kept a diary of his extensive travels, and collect funds for his school at Santiniketan (Abode of Peace), even wrote several textbooks for the boys and girls of his which had become a financial worry to the poet. Tagore’s asrama schools. As if all these were not enough, in 1912 lecture tours abroad were an economic necessity for his school, he completed a series of essays that were later delivered as but they were also a psychological necessity for Tagore. Like his lectures at Harvard University and published as Sadhana many other creative endeavors, his travels also provided him (The Realization of Life). In 1917 Nationalism and Personality opportunities to “know the full meaning of my birth as a were published, which contained his lectures and addresses human being in this world.” delivered in Japan and the United States in 1916; and in Tagore had other reasons to travel, which made some 1922 Creative Unity was published containing his occasional observe that he was not only a constant international traveler essays and other lectures delivered abroad. but a traveler in internationalism, which he had adopted as During the stretch of six decades, Tagore had interludes of his most cherished cause. It is not surprising that Tagore has stagnation as well. Many times the poet’s muse started to falter, been called “conspicuously bicultural.” Tagore’s progression but not for long. He had comparatively few sterile periods, toward selfhood and an attempt at the realization of the though he had produced enough to make a writer famous. infinite was not smooth. From 1878 to 1941, he continuously Constant travel, intense financial struggles, public addresses, worked at full pressure, and though we may not enjoy all his and a ceaseless crusade for a new outlook were distractions works, we have to note the flagging of his inspiration on Rabindranath Tagore 1861–1941 e83 occasions. We cannot trace the growth of his genius only up Further Reading to a certain point, but have to discover the peaks scattered all over those 60 years. Tagore scholars feel that even his fail- Das, S. K. (1988). Keynote address. In Chaudhuri, B. and Subramanyan, K. G. (Eds.), Rabindranath Tagore and the challenges of today. Shimla, India: Indian Institute of ures are more worthwhile than the success of many writers. Advanced Study. The poet in Tagore grew slowly, stage by stage, and not in a Dutta, K. and Robinson, A. (1995). Rabindranath Tagore: The myriad-minded man. flash. Years of formal discipline and layers upon layers of London: Bloomsbury. experience would have to follow before he could articulate Ghose, S. (1986). Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi, India: Sahitya Akademi. himself convincingly. Kripalani, K. (1961). Tagore: A life. New Delhi, India: Malancha. Lago, M. M. (1976). Rabindranath Tagore. Boston: Twain. Mahatma Gandhi called Tagore Gurudev (Revered Master) Mukherjee, D. P. (1944). Tagore: A study. Bombay, India: Padma. and he attained a certain classicality. His works have universal Raina, M. K. (1997). Most dear to all the muses: Mapping Tagorean networks of appeal and that illuminates his complexity and “myriad- enterprise—A study in creative complexity. Creativity Research Journal 10: mindedness.” His unique humanism is reflected in a statement 153–173. Ray, N. (1967). An artist in life. Trivandrum, India: University of Kerala. Darwin’s granddaughter made to a friend after meeting Tagore: Thompson, E. (1991). Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and dramatist. Delhi, India: Oxford “I can now imagine a powerful and gentle Christ, which I never University Press. could before.”