Original subtitles

Good morning and welcome back to NPTEL online lectures on Indian poetry in

English being delivered by Vinod Mishra.

My dear friends, in the previous lecture, that was lecture number three,

discussed Torudat and now we are in the midst of

the fourth lecture which is on Rabindranath Tagore.

A name which Indians are very much proud of and especially a

particular region of our country, especially Bengal, who consider

Tagore as their poet.

And in this lecture, we'll see how Rabindranath Tagore, who started as a

Bengali poet, became from a national poet to an international

poet.

and how he just still remembered and his contribution in the world of Indian

poetry in English are not to be forgotten despite

having traveled years and years of

our academic journey.

Now who was this Ramidhanath Tagore and what were the social conditions

which actually enabled Tagore to carve his poetic

numbers in such a way that he became a multi -dimensional genius.

The socio -political conditions during that time was quite tumultuous, my dear

friend. And India was passing through a very difficult phase.

As we have seen, there was actually a sort of national consciousness all

the country.

And then, the tenacious hold of western imperialism was not liked by many

of the nationalists here we must understand that even though Tagore was

political figure and he didn't have much access to politics yet through his

poetic numbers he was actually creating his songs his lyrics and

through many of other genres because Tagore combined in himself

so many talons.

He was not only a poet, but he was a dramatist.

He was not only a dramatist, but a painter, a musician.

Fine? He actually was a person who had in him all sorts of

talons which could actually work well for the development of this nation.

De Gaulle at one place had said, Let our civilization take its firm stand

upon its basis of social cooperation and not upon that of economic exploitation

and conflict.

During that time, when India was passing through a very critical stage and there

was a fight for freedom, Tagore had a different sort of notion.

Tagore was not a hardcore nationalist and he was not even opposed to the

education.

Even though he was not that good at English.

Which you may remember as I have said in my first lecture.

How Tagore had himself mentioned in one of his letters to one of his nieces.

When he said that I even did not know how to respond when somebody asked me

a cup of tea.

But Tagore actually has realized that the West has not sent out its humanity

to meet the man in the East.

but also but but only its machine now tagore was such a person who

had a different sort of notion that humanity was one of the best weapons and

that is what we can find in the works of tagore because through different

journals that he has worked how he has created a world so let us first try to

understand who was tagore and how In a family of 14 brothers, no,

he was actually, Tagore got his birth on 6th May

1861 in Kolkata.

And there were 14 siblings, out of which

7 were the sons, and he was the last of all.

Tagore was right from the beginning influenced by Chandidas.

Bediapati and many more because he had been listening to and he also remembered

and admired the songs which was in a different sort of tradition that was the

Basnava tradition.

But then he was also not untouched by the English romantics and great

Victorians. We'll find later how he was also influenced by the major

romantic poets.

and also by major Victorian poets and how he could also find in his own world

the element of Browning Skew and then also of Whitman. So he combined in

a sort of exposure to Western education even though he was not that good at

English.

Now many of us may wonder that Tagore who began writing at a very small age

of 17

And you know, as it would have it, being a Bengali, he started writing in

Bengali. So primarily, Tagore was a Bengali poet.

But then, how he became an English poet was also by accident that we

shall discuss.

Tagore's writings and his views.

Because Tagore was a thinker even besides being a poet.

A painter even besides... being a playwright, a nationalist, even besides

being a person who was actually thinking of his own pattern of education,

but he was also a sort of internationalist.

It is only because of those feelings that Tagore had composed our national

anthem, Jana Gana Mana, that many of us are reminiscent of.

And this was for the first time recited in one of the meetings of Indian

National Congress. And later on, it became our national anthem.

It was in 1901 that he started a sort of ashram at Shanti Niketan,

which has become world famous.

And this Shanti Niketan, which later on developed into a university, had a mix

of all sorts of scholars, not only from India, but also from abroad.

Such was a great vision of Tagore.

Fine. And Tagore died on 7th August 1941.

A man who had so many qualities.

He had also a long life to lead.

So how Tagore came to be recognized as an Indian English poet and how

he became an English poet that we must know my different.

During a time when nationalism was on the rise, Tagore had been translating

of his own works. Though he was writing in Bengali, many of his Bengali works

got recognized.

And he had become very popular in Bengal, as popular as Chandidas and

And Bengalis are still proud of, and they must be proud of, not only them,

we Indians must be proud of Tagore being...

a poet who brought to India the first Nobel Prize in literature.

There was actually a beautiful blend of Vedic and Rig Vedic affiliations, which

provided Tagore with all sorts of imageries.

And in the world of Tagore, we will find, if you go through, because most of

are familiar with Tagore, Gitanjali, which was translated as

song offering.

Fine, we'll see how it became an English poetry and how it opened the

minds of the people away from India, away from the theocentric vision.

Tagore had a scientific vision, my dear friends.

But how did this happen? How Tagore composed Gitanjali?

Tagore's knowledge of English, as I have been telling, that it was not in

English that one can say.

It was actually a flawless or immaculate English.

But he himself has realized that his English was not good.

But when he translated Gitanjali, he in one of his letters again wrote to Indira

his niece, I did not undertake this task in a spirit of reckless bravado.

I mean, while he was translating his own works into English.

So he says that I was not.

undertaking this task in a spirit of reckless bravado rather i simply felt an

urge to recapture let me let me underline the word recapture through the

of another language the feelings and sentiments which had created such a

of joy within me in past days my dear friends

Tagore has visited England even in his youth also but then in

1912 because earlier also Tagore got a lot of time as a manager

of his own estates he used to take inland journeys where he got a lot of

think to revise his own poems and this finally had become a habit so when in

1912 Tagore

was going to England through this inland water.

On the ship, he thought, because in order to get himself relieved of the

and the ennui that those days the journeys included, he started

of his poems.

And not only did he translate, so while he was translating, he did not have in

his mind that this should become a classic.

He translated. And in England, he actually lost his own translations in

Railway Tube, which was later.

I mean, his translated works were later actually

recovered by none other than his son, Rathindranath, who actually shared it

with Professor William Rothenstein. William Rothenstein.

And you know, This is how it was. It was in 1912 and it was in

1913 that the message of Tagore becoming the recipient of Nobel

Prize in literature came.

And after this news came, Tagore's reputation became bigger. By that time,

Tagore has himself established himself in Bengali. But now he was also known

as a great.

english poet but before that let us try to understand what was it in his

work that made him so great a poet apart from uh gitanjali uh

there are other works also of tagore which we must be familiar with the very

gitanjali uh came out in 1912 followed by the gardener which was

published in 1913 my dear friends All of us must remember that Tagore

wrote only one poem in English and that was Towards the End and that was The

Child in 1931.

Rest of the poems are merely his translations.

And you know, these are either translated by him or by some other

But his translations have established his reputation because his translations

are not only translations but rather transcreations.

So, one of the books entitled The Gardener, which was published in 1913,

actually, it is a sort of love fist, as Sree Basa Younger calls it. It is a sort

of love fist. And here we find, whereas in Gitanjali we find that it is a sort

of song suffering where he says, I sing to thee, I came to sing of thee. Here

there is a quest.

There is not only a philosophical but a spiritual quest in Gitanjali. As we will

see. Here he himself at times surrenders. Here he himself at times

of being in the company of God.

And the lines of Gitanjali are so beautifully carved my dear friend. That

times he says.

Oh you do. I did not know he came sat by my side. I could not know.

Ah how. What a sort of sleep it was.

So Tagore believes.

And he blends the finite with the infinite.

But in the other book that is Gardiner. Where he talks about love.

And this love is between humans.

Between humans. It is not between man and God. But between humans.

And then there is another book. Which was published in 1913. The same year.

Crescent Moon.

Which talks about childhood.

And while he talks about childhood, he not only talks about one side of

childhood, but he provides both the sides of childhood, the child being

as an adult, the outer and the inner side.

inner insider's view of childhood and there are many beautiful passages where

you will find that how the child believes in a world of day trimming why

throwing his glances out of the window while thinking of the butterflies while

thinking of the flute why i mean there are many sorts of wanderings that the

child has and then Even if we read today, we can find how the nascent

has gone, how the nascent childhood has died.

And then the child, as I said, the only work that was written in English by

Tagore was inspired by a passion play and that also in Germany.

Once upon a time when Tagore visited Germany, he was asked to write a play.

Asked to write a play which could have the basis of the man of faith.

Surprisingly enough. This man of faith who actually trials for millions and

millions of his people. And those people were following him. But at the end of

it so happens that the same man of faith is killed by his impatient followers.

Many people believe that this man of faith.

The killing of this man of faith suddenly turned out in the killing of

as you know after the independence.

Fine. So but then they cannot because these are all sorts

of imaginations or all sorts of things that people can think about. But then it

is actually this child is actually an allegory which as I said the man of

who is killed during the night only by his despairing and impatient followers,

my dear friend.

So, even if Gitanjali, which has more than 100 odd poems, and most of his

are actually written in a song sequence, but apart from Gitanjali, Let us first

try to, and we do not have much time to talk about the entire corpus of what

goes well, but we shall simply be touching upon because my aim through

course is to familiarize more and more Indian poetry in English, not only

of our precursors, but also of our present times. Now, the gardener, which

considered to be a love poem, a love fist, there are certain lines.

Because Tagore believed and since Tagore was a man who had in him a sort of

literary bilingualism.

And in this poem, The Gardener, he talks of love in various manifestations

and he says that love has got different sorts of voices.

And here he talks about love, not only the love of one person, but

the love both of male and female.

Where he says that love can at times create anger, at times

identity, at times it can create a sense of possession, at times it can provide

a sense of debilitating influence upon man. And here are some lines you can

find, like a bird losing its way, I am caught.

Many of Indian critics can find in all these the different sorts of rasals.

Fine? The rasas or the inner delight which I have been calling,

they actually at times can be the rasas of singar, the rasas of bera, I mean

separation. Free me from the bonds of sweetness, my love.

And when he talks about love uniting people, he says, for a few fragrant

we too have been made immortal.

We too have been made immortal.

And again, when he talks about the female love, he also talks about how the

female lover, the demure female lover, at times, in a very instantaneous

way, she says, go, and later on starts feeling like weeping, oh, why doesn't

she come back?

And one very important and significant line from the gardener, which can make

all swim into an ocean of delight is I plucked your flower oh world

I pressed it to my heart and the thorn pricked when the day waned and it

darkened I found that the flower had faded but the pain remained I mean

both the sides of no the meeting the union and also the sort of separation

what actually are the characteristics of Tagore's poetry

Is Tagore only a love poet? Yes. In Tagore we can find there are various

manifestations of love. Love not only to human being but love to the almighty

who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and Tagore has sung n

number of songs not only in praise of the almighty but also trying to create a

sort of human bond with the divine where he actually makes us remind of the

themes of God, nature, love, child, river, and death.

What makes Tagore an Indian poet is the strain and the Indian ethos, the

Indian sensibility, my dear friend.

Now, as I said earlier, that Tagore was not hostile to English education or the

Western influence.

Tagore was actually trying to create a sort of synthesis between the East and

the West.

And that is why even though not so good at English, what he said, we must

recognize that it is providential that the West has come to India and yet

someone must show the East to the West.

The West should actually know what are the qualities of the East and convince

the West that the East has a contribution to make to the history of

civilization. India is no bigger to the West and convince the West.

And yet even the West may think he is. I am not for trusting of Western

civilization and becoming segregated in our independence.

Let us have a deep association.

So all Tagore wanted that it is only by integrating with the West that we can

have a sort of development.

So he was a very forward looking person as regards his poetry, as regards.

his vision as regards his thought processes and as regards his own

Now, since Gitanjali made Tagore one of the world famous poets and brought

a laurel to India in the form of Nobel Prize in Literature, it is actually

a gain in loss.

Why loss? As I told you, the manuscript of it was forgotten or locked in the

realitude and later on it was recovered.

So,

Had it not been lost, perhaps it could not have caught the eyes of the English

poets and the English painters like William Rothenstein and W .B. Yeats, who

happened to be so moved that whenever he got time, he used to read that in

hotels and restaurants, as he has himself mentioned. Fine. And then

somebody came, he used to close it, lest others may know and see that W .B.

Yeats. Had been moved rather.

And he had written a preface to it.

The theme of this Gitanjali.

Is complete devotion.

In Indian context we can find it. It is actually imbued with the Vakti Rasa.

The Vakti Rasa. Devotion.

The tone may appear to be very philosophical.

Devotional and mystical.

Yet it is not devoid of the delight.

Fine. And as I have said.

It was not only a translation, even though Tagore might have tried to

it, but later on it became a sort of transcreation.

And Buddha Dev Vos, one of the famous Bengali poets has said, there are

when the translation surpassed the original and that have become in the

Tagore. So after Tagore got Nobel Prize in 1913, the

entire world came to know that Indian literature is so vast, Indian literature

had such a great depth as many of the forefathers had been trying to promote

Many of the songs in this collection are in the form of semi -sonnets, and even

they are philosophical.

I mean, at times the poet may appear to be talking of a sort of pessimism.

Yet there is a sort of optimism.

So there is actually a shift from pessimism to determined optimism.

And here the one that I was referring to about WB -8 who says, I have carried

the manuscripts of these translations about with me for days, reading it in

railway trains or in the top of Omnibuses and restaurants, and I have

to close it lest some stranger would see how much it moved me.

So W .B .H.

during his own time was quite famous. And even Adjira Pound had also a lot of

appreciation for these verses. And William Rothenstein, the professor

actually later came to know that once he had come across this man. But at that

time, I could not understand that he was such a great person.

Now, in order to understand the beauty, the rhythm, the philosophy.

And the sort of surrender and the sort of devotion that Tagore offers in his

songs, offerings, we can find. Because Tagore did not believe that there was

only one way to love God.

And in poem number 11, what he says is actually a sort of eye -opener when he

says, Leave this chanting and singing and telling of being.

Whom dost thou worship?

In this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut.

Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee.

So when you are chanting and you are thinking that God is before thee. No.

And you see what he provides the solution and he says.

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground. And where the path

maker is breaking stones.

Let us see.

this sort of sympathy and this sort of optimism that Tagore had for the common

ranks of people the farmers he is with them in sun and star and his

garment is covered with dust put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down

on the dusty soil Tagore does not say that one should actually worship only

God or one should Have his or her opinions.

Or his or her devotions. To one religion. Rather he says.

The true religion is the religion of the common people.

Deliverance. Where is the deliverance to be found?

Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him. The bonds of creation.

He is born with us. For all ever.

Come out of that meditation.

And leave aside thy flowers and incense.

What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered?

His sympathy for the poor people, no?

Even though Tagore himself was from a very rich and cultured family, but his

heart bled to those walking in the ground, those walking in the fields. And

is how he says that God doesn't belong only to somebody who has confined God

simply is chanting, but God is with them.

Who are actually hard working.

God is with them. Who are there working in isolation.

But then trying for the greater welfare.

My dear friends. There are around hundred poems in Gitanjali. And all of

We cannot say that one is meager. Or some other is greater.

But all the poems in it.

Actually remind us of the sort of significance.

That Tagore had been having.

Now here I am actually.

passionate enough to recite another poem that is poem number 18 from Gitanjali

where you see how he depicts clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens

ah laugh why dost thou let me wait outside the door all alone no he tells

God why do you let me wait outside at the door all alone in the busy moments

the noontide work I am with the crowd so

We are reminded of one very beautiful poem.

I am the mob, the mass, the crowd.

Fine? So God is with those people. If thou showest me not thy face,

if thou leavest me wholly aside, I know not how I am to pass these long rainy

hours. I am in the arts of sorrow and you alone can take me up. You alone can

convert all my sorrows into joys.

I keep gazing on the far away gloom of the sky and my heart wanders wailing

the restless winds.

And then, there is another poem which need not be forgotten because it

was such a poem which, while it was a part of song suffering, but it actually

prompted people to come out of a sort of mental slavery.

And then, this poem, has been prescribed in most of the colleges and

universities where he says where the mind is out here and the head is held

where knowledge is free where the world has not been broken up into fragments by

narrow domestic walls where words come out from the depth of truth can there be

any poet writing like this where he talks about no boundaries

where he talks about man's ultimate freedom from any sort of slavery even

he was not political but then what he was here trying to direct was a sort

of invocation to people to get out of the sort of you know the sort of

independence that we were in where tireless striving stretches its thumbs

towards perfection where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

the dreary desert sand of dead habit and then finally he says into that heaven

of freedom peace my father let my country awake so in a way

as a poet he was trying to invoke the masses

He was trying to invoke the citizens of this people that at all

costs we have to get our own freedom.

The freedom that we are not enslaved.

There are certain characteristic features which since you might have read

poem not only during your school and college days but you can find At times

there are several repetitions and several literary devices have been used.

The repetition of the word where is actually reminiscent of the use of

And then there is a sort of integral philosophy.

The poem not only talks about freedom, but it talks about freedom of all sorts.

And it also talks about how Britishers, who had actually been ruling over

us and exploiting all our resources, how they need to be realized that the

country belongs to those people who actually are the soils of the soul and

the alien ones.

So there is a sort of patriotic voice, but then this voice cannot be confined

only to Indian settings. It can actually spread to all of the nations which once

upon a time had been being ruled by the alien part.

Now, apart from Gitanjali, as I said, The Gardener, again, is

one of the most famous poems and we have discussed that.

But here, something, because after all, all poets

within themselves have a child alive in them.

And here is a poem from The Crescent Moon. As I said earlier, The Crescent

talks about both the internal and the external views of a child.

How the child, when he is a child or sees a child, how his passions

are at times circumscribed.

But then how the child wants to have a sort of freedom.

And here he has titled this poem as On the Seashore. And the poem goes like

this. On the seashore of endless world, children meet.

Talks about children.

The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is white trash.

See the images.

On the seashore of endless world, the children meet with shouts and dances.

No, the natural, the spontaneous joys.

They build their houses with sand.

Imagination. Every child is an imaginative creature.

And they play with empty cells.

With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly flow to them.

Childhood reminiscences.

On the vast deep children have their play on the seashore of worlds. Are you

reminded of Wordsworth's Odon Intimations?

You might be reminded of how Wordsworth has done in that.

And here Tagore says, They know not how to swim.

They know not how to cast nets.

I mean the worldly knowledge.

They are devoid of.

Pearl fishers dive for pearls.

March and sail in their ships.

While children gather pebbles. And scatter them again.

They seek not for the hidden treasures. They know not how to cast nets.

So this is the innocent children.

But will the innocent children.

Or should the innocent children's innocence be snatched from them? And

what is happening.

And that is why this poem has got a sort of universal appeal.

The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.

Death -dealing waves sing.

Meaningless ballads to the children.

Even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle.

See the use of simile. Even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle.

The sea plays with children and pale gleams the smile of the sea bitch.

On the seashore of the endless world children meet.

So again I repeat.

Tempest roams in the passless sky.

Sips are wrecked in the trackless water.

Death is abroad and children play.

On the seesaw of endless worlds is the great meeting of the children.

So the entire poem actually is a sort of reminiscence of all

our childhood.

How in childhood we actually want to have a sight of all that goes around us.

How innocently we respond to and how nature is at its work. How people are at

its work. But then...

Death is abroad and children play on the seesaw of endless words is the great

meeting of children.

So it not only evokes the innocence of the child in harmony with nature.

Fine? As we see in the great romantic poet Wordsworth's poem, Ode on

Intimations of Immortality.

Fine? So we also, where he says, our birth is but a sleep and forgetting.

And here, in this poem, we find how the adult world and the children's world

have been compared.

There is, the children, they actually require a sort of companionship. And

companions, when the entire world is agog with their own merchandise, it is

only nature which can be their companion.

Fine? But then, Tagore, Why did Tagore write this poem? What could have been

inspiration? My dear friends, Tagore had witnessed a series of deaths in his

family. Right from his sister -in -law to his own wife to some of his own

relatives as well.

And that is how his childhood joys were destroyed.

But a child during his childhood should revel and rejoice in the childhood joys

and the children's joys.

Are being destroyed by the adult world. By the adult world of experiences.

So Tagore actually wanted to preserve the innocence of the children. Because

smile on the children is very puerile. Is very divine. And he does not want

to be devoid of that.

Now again we find that in many of his poems. Again in another poem.

from the poem entitled the wicked postman here you can again

find how the child is yearning to know what the mother is doing or why the

mother is so sad where the mother where the child is

quite unaware of and since the mother has lost her husband

Mother has lost her husband. The child in a sort of eagerness wants to bring a

sort of consolation to the mother. And the poem goes like this.

Where one line of the poem can actually remind us of the innocence when the

child says.

Haven't you got a letter from father today?

I saw the postman bringing letters in his bag for almost everybody in the

Only father's letter.

He keeps to read himself.

I am sure the postman is a wicked man.

But don't be unhappy about that, mother dear.

Tomorrow is market day in the next village.

You asked your maid to buy some pens and papers and I myself will write all

father's letter.

You will not find a single mistake.

I shall write from A right up to K.

Fine? The poem was actually earlier in Bengali but it was translated into

English. And towards the end, the child says, But mother, why do you smile?

You don't believe that I can write as nicely as father does?

But I shall rule my paper carefully and write all the letters beautifully big.

When I finish my writing, do you think I shall be so foolish as father and drop

it into the horrid postman's bag?

Again, the child's world and the adult's world and how the child's innocently

the child says, I shall bring it to you myself.

without waiting and letter by letter help you to read my writing, I know the

postman does not give you the really nice letters.

Now, such a sort of innocence, do we really find such a sort of innocence

anywhere other than a poet who is not philosophically clad, but

also thoughtfully well -dressed, where language does not become a barrier, my

dear friend. And that is why, When we try to assist Tagore, even though

the end Tagore had many critics, even those admirers like WB8, Edgera Pound,

C .S. Clavis and others who had actually been great admirers, they actually

turned turtle and they became very hostile because some of the use of

the language and the repetitive languages that were found in the later

Tagore did not please them.

But then, that actually does not beleaguer the stature of

a figure like Ramizana Tagore, who actually, not only through his

through all of his points, tried to say or convey that God is an entity

which actually combines the three beautiful words, Sat, chit and

anand truth heart and delight entertainment no

anand fine man has to remain true to nature that is what is

the essence of all tagore's poems the finite world and the body are

both real and good it is it is not that we should simply think of

the soul we should also think of the body. We should also think of the

But then, evil is but the part of the infinite perfection.

Tagore, who actually, if we have a look at his overall corpus, we can find, as

rightly has been mentioned by a famous Indian critic who says, that Tagore is a

poet with a delicate sensibility, deeply Indian.

There is Indian ethos, Indian strain, Indian sensibility, Indian colors,

Indian words.

Repetitive words like flute, like dance, like spirit, like soul,

like seesaw. I mean, these are the words through which Tagore's world is

actually bespattered with Tagore's style. To conclude, combines the

feminine grace of poetry, With the virile power of prose.

This is actually what was said. In the Nobel Prize presentation. Ceremony.

The feminine grace of poetry.

Because many people said that. Tagore writes prose poems.

And in the. Nobel Prize presentation ceremony.

One of the judges said.

The feminine grace of poetry.

With the virile power of prose.

My dear friends.

Tagore's world. Is not a world of pessimism.

Tagore's world is a world of optimism, and one can find layers of meaning in

Tagore's poetry.

And before we end, let us remind ourselves of one of the beautiful lines

Tagore from poem number 45, where he says, Have you not heard his silent

He comes, comes, ever comes, every moment and every age.

Every day. And every night he comes. Comes. Ever comes.

So. Life.

Of course. May have certain ups and downs.

But. If a man keeps his.

Heart intact.

If a man keeps his passions intact.

Devotes himself.

To. The services of God.

God will come surely.

His graces will come. His benignities will come.

And my dear friends, I will also come with the next lecture, lecture number

five, next day.

With all this, let me wish you all a good day.

And I thank you for your patient hearing.

Thank you. Have a nice day.