Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 — 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as the broader Indian literary tradition. In 1913 he became the first non-European and the first lyricist to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.^[1]

Early life

Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta to a wealthy Brahmin family. He was largely educated at home, and his earliest poems were published when he was only sixteen. His travels to Britain in 1878 introduced him to European literature and music, but his work remained rooted in the Bengali tradition.

Literary and musical work

Tagore wrote some 2,230 songs — collectively known as Rabindra Sangeet — that became fundamental to Bengali culture. Two of them are now national anthems: Jana Gana Mana (India) and Amar Shonar Bangla (Bangladesh).^[2] His poetry collection Gitanjali, translated into English with W. B. Yeats's introduction, won him the Nobel Prize.

Politics and education

Tagore was a vocal critic of the British Raj. He renounced his knighthood in 1919 in protest of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. In 1921 he founded Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, an institution committed to a synthesis of Eastern and Western learning.

Final years

He died at the Jorasanko mansion on 7 August 1941. His birth and death are still observed across Bengal, and his songs remain a living part of Bengali identity.^[3]