GOVERNMENT ARTS AND SCIENCE COLLEGE, VALPARAI INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION Unit:1 POETRY Gitanjali by Tagore, Verses 1 to 30 (Macmillan) Unit:2 Non-detailed: Thirukkural 1 to 20 verses Unit:3 DRAMA Non-Detailed: Aurangzeb - Indira Parthasarathy (Seagull) Unit:4 NOVEL Chemeen - Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai Unit:5 Sangati - Bama, Trans. Lakshmi Holmstrom – OUI UNIT-1 Summary of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali The First stanza starts mentioning the grace of God to a human being. Tagore considers the human body as a frail vessel, God intermittently repairs it's damaged and fills up it with fresh life. God is all master of Human being, he takes care of his subjects and solves all of their problems. In that way, man is made endless withe the pleasure from God. The second stanza says God is a great flute player or a musician and the poet is considered to a flute. The breath paid through the flute comes as a melody and it is eternally new, it lasts forever. Tagore might have considered the poet as a flute and the poem comes out of his mouth as an eternal melody which is new forever. Poet reaches in unspeakable about the characteristic of God. Every touch from God touches a poet‘s heart, this fills his heart with overjoy and makes him in a state of pleasure extreme to be expressed. Tagore says God‘s infinite gifts comes only to him, to his little hands. God will save me, protect me, bless me. I will be the same person even when the ages pass. My special room is my heart to store all your blessings. God continues to pour his blessings to rooms of his hearts, but still, there is room to fill. God is omnipotent and omnipresent. The beginning lines express the poet‘s admiration for God. Tagore tells God is with the poorest and the lowliest and the lost people. Poet asks where are you, what is your role, now I‘m going to offer my life and bend down on your footstool. Poet is living among the common people where he can see God. Here, the poet may be trying to explain that we can find God through the poorest, lowliest and the lost people. God won‘t leave them but definitely will help. Like a king rest his feet on a footstool, here poets tell God‘s footstool is the poor men themselves, He rests his feet among them. In the second stanza, Tagore how deep-rooted the relationship of God with the poorest people. When the poet tries to bow down before God, his obeisance cannot reach down to the depth where God‘s feet rest among the lost people. That much deeper is God‘s touch on the common people. People with ego can never reach God. The God has worn the cloths of humbleness, and he walks among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost. Poets service is to offer his life to God, the poet is not ready to suffer as all the poets with a peaceful life. Simply remove the ego and get purified, then come to God. He never loves egoist men. Poet is on search, he can‘t take rest in his life. He wants God always with him otherwise his life will become meaningless. In this last stanza, the poet feels so confused. He can‘t find a way to reach God, because God is with the poorest people. This makes him fear, he feels without His presence he can‘t lead a meaningful life. The major theme in Gitanjali is devotion to God. This paper focuses on the Indian philosophical aspects and the theme of devotion in Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali. Gitanjali focuses on the all-pervading presence of God everywhere Gitanjali brings its readers into direct contact with the Infinite. GITANJALI (SONG OFFERINGS) – SUMMARY AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS Rabindranath’s Gitanjali is originally written in Bengali language. The English Gitanjali or Song Offerings is a collection of 103 English poems of Tagore’s own English translations. The word Gitanjali is composed out of git+ anjali. Git means song, and anjali means offering, thus it’s meant as “Song offerings”. The publication of the English version of Gitanjali paved Tagore a way to the world of English literature. It was in 1912 he published the Gitanjali and in 1913 he was awarded the Nobel Prize by Swedish academy. Rabindranath Tagore is primarily and pre-eminently a lyric poet. KRS Iyengar says “He wrote the largest number of lyrics ever attended by any poet”. Tagore composed about 2000 lyrics of incomparable beauty and sweetness. Its lyrics are both rich in content and form and they are noticeable for the exquisite blending of the harmony of thoughts, feelings and melody of world. Tagore’s Lyricism Tagore’s lyricism underwent a gradual process of evolution. His lyrics are authentic expression of his romantic imagination through which he looked a man, nature and human life. On the other hand, his early lyrics are characterized by romantic exuberance (extreme passion) and mainly deal with the various aspects of nature and beauty, which have been the favorite themes of romantic poets. Tagore’s lyrics are are characterized by the versatility of themes, bu it is the manifestation of divinity in all objects and the aspects of Universe. He composed lyrics on God, Love, Nature, Children, Love of the world and humanity and so on. No other poets even Sarojini Naidu who has been hailed as the Nightingale of India composed lyrics of such a vast variety of themes. In his lyrics, Tagore recaptures the theme and spirits of Indian philosophy and vividly creates the Indian atmosphere and the influence of Upanishads, The Vaishnava, Poets, The folk songs of Bengal and Kalidas. Introduction The Gitanjali Song Offerings poetry collection by Rabindranath Tagore was first published in the Bengali language in 1910. The English version, Song Offerings, was published in 1912 with translations by Tagore, with a second edition following in 1913. Later that year, Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The English edition of Gitanjali is divided into 103 sections of prose poetry. Not all of these poems come from the Bengali version; Song Offerings also contains poems from Tagore’s previously published books. The 1913 edition begins with an introduction by W. B. Yeats, the Irish poet who helped Tagore to find a Western audience. Yeats describes his interest in Tagore’s work and notes the poet’s ability to combine authentic feeling with spiritual concepts. Throughout the Gitanjali collection, Tagore expresses a joyful, personalized spirituality with emphasis on devotion, faith, and an individual’s relationship with the divine in contrast with the official rules and practices of orthodox religion. Although the poems in the English-language edition come from various collections, they still can be understood with a narrative arc. The collection begins with the poet’s joy at serving God, describes his suffering through separation from God and his re-awakening to God’s presence, shares his accumulated wisdom through song and story, and, at the end, relates his acknowledgment of his mortality and fulfillment of his life’s purpose. Plot Summary In numbers 1 through 15 of Song Offerings, the poet presents himself as a singer who is devoted to God and expresses joy with this relationship. He seeks to develop a voice in order to carry God’s love into the world: he says in number 4, “And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.” A note of sadness enters with number 16, in which the poet expresses his desire to leave earthly existence to unite with the divine. He describes in number 18 his dismay at feeling a separation from God and his previous good spirits diminish as he struggles to cope with the mundane world: “Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens. Ah, love, why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone?” When God visits, the poet is in such a state of despair he doesn’t notice. He admits he has imprisoned himself through arrogance. Yet even in this dark state, God is still with him: he writes in number 32, “If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart, thy love for me still waits for my love.” Themes Nature as an Expression of the Divine Many of Tagore’s poems are about the beauties of nature. The speaker in the poems notices the wonders of the natural world that others may overlook, such as bees buzzing beyond his window. He sees nature as a window into the divine, and when he witnesses its beauty, it is a way to observe and meditate on the wonders and attraction of the divine presence. In his poems, he advocates pausing time and letting the worldly cares of life wait so that one can appreciate what is lasting and divine in the natural world. The Majesty of Common Life In one of his songs, Tagore writes about a child who is weighed down by his robe and jewels. He says that the child feels these adornments as only weight, and he implores the child’s mother to remove them so that the child can enter the common world. Tagore writes about the glories of dust, a symbol of common life. In another song, he writes that one cannot find God in a dark, isolated temple. Instead, one must enter into life and surround oneself with the world.