Analysis Of The Poems Of Rabindranath Tagore

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“The appearance of “The Poems of Rabindranath Tagore” is, to my mind, very important. I am by no means sure that I can convince the reader of this importance. For proof I must refer him to the text. He must read it quietly. He would do well to read it aloud, for this apparently simple English translation has been made by a great musician, by a great artist who is familiar with a music much subtler than our own.” -Ezra Pound on Rabindranath Tagore ESTABLISHING TAGORE Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta, in what is now West Bengal, in 1861. He was a prolific poet and is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal. He is known for being the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for Gitanjali, a collection …show more content…

Rothenstein had gone to India with a very different agenda but in happenstance met Tagore. Tagore offered his Gitanjali translations (he had prepared them in solitude when he was recuperating) to Rothenstein who took it to W. B. Yeats and the seminal reading took place which proved quite important with the presence of George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, Robert Bridges, Ezra Pound etc. The conclusion of reading was that a new poet had emerged in the English society. Rothenstein arranged for publication of the translated poems under the title Gitanjali, or Song-Offering, first in a limited edition by the India Society in London, then by Macmillan. In the summer of 1913 Gitanjali brought Rabindranath the Nobel …show more content…

Tagore often felt out of step in his own country and longed for international; recognition. His rapid decline was to a great extant due to faults in his translations. As he became busy with travels, he often left his translation works to friends and associates whose competence was questionable. In his own translations he often tried to please Western audience by diluting the cultural specifity of the Bengali original. There were other reasons for his decline as well, for example his anti-imperialist views made him unpopular in the West. But whatever the case, Tagore is still

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