Human Values: The Tagorean Panorama

by Rabindranath Tagore, S.K. Chakraborty (Translator)

About the "Rabindranath Tagores epic life spanned the last four decades of the 19th century and the first four of the 20th. Possibly the most versatile aesthetic genius India has produced, he was a school dropout who became in 1913 the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for English translations of his own poems, Gitanjali ("Offerings of Song"). But the fine arts were not his sole concern. Tagore was deeply involved in the Swadeshi and freedom movements. The appellative "Mahatma" by which Gandhi is known world-wide was given to him by his respected mentor Tagore. whom he addressed as "Gurudev". Subhas Bose and Nehru had profound admiration for him. In protest against the Jalianwala Bagh atrocities he relinquished the Knighthood conferred upon him by the British Government.? He was a pioneer in experimenting with grassroots co-operatives for rural reconstruction. A world-wide traveller, he conceived of a Universal University (Vishva Bharati) at Shantiniketan as a meeting ground of the best of the East and the West to develop the complete man. Tagore is the only poet whose compositions have been chosen by two countries as their national India and Bangladesh."

374 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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....