A Difficult Relationship: Letters of Edward Thompson & Rabindranath Tagore 1913-40

by Rabindranath Tagore, Edward John Thompson, Uma Das Gupta

Edward Thompson, an English poet and Wesleyan missionary--and, later, father of the eminent historian E. P. Thompson--first met Rabindranath Tagore on the day the poet learned he had won the Nobel Prize in 1913. He became closely involved with him and his circle during the preparation of Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist (OUP 1992), the first major English-language study of his writings. This volume of letters, ranging from 1913 until 1940, the year before Tagore's death, sheds new light on this remarkable and stormy friendship, and offers fresh insights into Anglo-Indian relations in the first quarter of the last century.

243 pages, Unknown Binding

First published February 6, 2003

About the author

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."

Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.

The complete works of Rabindranath Tagore (রবীন্দ্র রচনাবলী) in the original Bengali are now available at these third-party websites:
http://www.tagoreweb.in/
http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr....