RABINDRANATH TAGORE

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

About the Poet: Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore was a person of great and varied learning who wrote Gitanjali with its deeply spiritualist, bracing and beauteous verse.  One of the greatest writers in modern Indian literature, Tagore was a poet, philosopher, musician, writer, and educationist. He established the Santiniketan with its refreshing vision of education and later Viswabharati University.  Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913for his collection of poems Gitanjali. He was awarded the knighthood in 1915 which he returned 1919 as a protest against the Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh.
The spiritual and expressive quality of his poems in translation together with his outwardly charismatic prophet-like appearance created around him the aura of a mystic in the West which hazed over his reformist and global vision and outlook.
Tagore was instrumental in the introduction of new prose and verse forms as well as the usage of colloquialism into Bengali literature which liberated the Bengali Literature from the traditional forms excessively dependent on classical Sanskrit. Tagore, the exceptionally influential creative artist, is celebrated as an icon of Indian culture.
About the Poem: Where the Mind is Without Fear
The poem Where the Mind is Without Fear is a prayer to a universal father-figure, that is, the God Almighty. The poem, with its inspiring lines, elaborates Tagore's vision of a new, enlightened India.
The poem, written originally in Bengali, was composed before India’s independence most probably in the year 1900. The original poem titled Prarthana was included in an anthology named Naibedya and the poem was translated into English by Tagore himself around 1911. The poem is Poem 35 in the English Gitanjali published in 1912.The poem had a special place in Tagore’s heart and he recited its English version at the Indian National Congress session in Calcutta, 1917.
Theme
The poet, Rabindranath Tagore, envisages an ideal...

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