Book Description

Customer Reviews (7)

The soul of the man
When I was in London in September 2006, I visited the British Museum.The first exhibit I saw as I entered the building was of the paintings and writings of Tagore.I was deeply moved by his inspiring words and decided I needed to read more, know more, about this man.I found this anthology to be just what I was looking for.It contains his words, and gave me insight into the man behind them.Certainly his words reveal the soul.A "can't miss" if that is your aim.

Competent introduction to Tagore
If the only thing that you read in this book were the short play "The Post Office", then it would still be worth the price.The ending of the play is one of many moments scattered throughout the pages that had an almost physical impact on me as a reader.

It a testimony to the sheer strength of Tagore as a writer that the reader is able to have those moments while reading this anthology. It unfortunately suffered from many of the typical problems of this kind of collection. The selections often felt too shallow and abbreviated. The quality of the translations varied wildly from chapter to chapter.

As a reader, I would have appreciated it if Dutta and Robinson had refrained from excerpting the longer prose works and instead had concentrated on deepening the selection of letters, short stories and essays. Reading an excerpt of a longer work is bound to be a frustrating exercise, and the space was used at the expense of material more natural for this kind of collection.

I picked this up to give me an overview of Tagore as a writer. It served that purpose admirably. Recommended for someone with the same task in mind.

Pure Illumination
This anthology was my introduction to Tagore and what a spectacular discovery!It was like being introduced to several writers, each one distinctly different, dependent upon the medium.

Tagore's five short stories in this anthology are folkloric, sometimes sad or humorous, somewhat other worldly, and always entertaining.They expose the hues of Bengal better than paintings with their brilliant characterizations and finite details of place and time.Here's a sampling from The Raj Seal: "An old story came to his mind.An ass was pulling a temple car along the sacred way, and the passers-by, prostrating themselves in the dust before it were offering their pranams. 'They are all worshipping me,' the foolish ass thought. 'There's only one small difference between that ass and me,'the elder brother told himself.'I have at last realized that it is not my person the British sahibs respect, but the jacket weighing on my shoulders.'"

Tagore's play The Post Office is included in its entirety.It's very childlike and simplistic in structure, yet it is poignantly profound with its message that death is serene; "...that great ocean of truth to which all life returns".

The Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to him in 1913.Part of the tribute was for Tagore's poetry, particularly Gitanjali; however, there is too small of a sample (four stanzas) to truly appreciate it.My favorite from the anthology was Flute Music, an autobiographical poem.

Tagore the philosopher is evident in his essays and letters.In his letters he takes on the persona to whom the letter is addressed.The debate with Einstein "On the Nature of Reality" leaves the reader uncertain as to who was more convincing.A rebuke to Gandhi reads like the good counsel of a loving older brother.(It was Tagore who gave Gandhi the honorific title, Mahatma.)

The three excerpts from his novel The Home and the World have induced me to order the book, which is still in print.When Hermann Hesse reviewed the German translation, he praised it for its "purity and grandeur".

Now, I could only hope for more of his writings to become translated and accessible.

Extraordinairy Selections & Literary Achievement
With immense pleasure and great anticipation I read this Anthology. I feel the world is ready for Tagore's poems, short stories, and plays once more. His interest in world peace, his sensitivity for the human condition, and love of humanity is the kind of message the world needs, perhaps *even* more today than when the author first wrote his words. As with most translations of this author's famous work - there is a wonderful and necessary "Introduction" which gives many examples of his life experiences, interests, and achievements, helping one to sense the broad scope of knowledge and range of ideas to which the reader will be exposed.

Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson so wisely selected his play, "The Post Office" as the first chapter. This play is like a pearl found in an oyster shell ... the outside appearance gives no impression of the valuable gem to be found within. The message is breath-taking in its simplicity and sublime due to its universal message which transcends culture and time. The beauty of this Anthology is the wide range and depth of Tagore's writing to which the reader is exposed. His writing is awesome and inspiring, filled with love for mankind, by one who sees the complete picture, but nonetheless is filled with hope. We read Rabindranath Tagore's memoirs in "My Remininscences" - we learn about his relationship with his father, a journey into the Himalayas, and his boyhood days. Tagore's travel writings about Russia, Japan, England, Java, Persia, and a day at the spa in Balatonfured, Hungary are fascinating to read. We have the privilege of reading Tagore's personal letters to his neice, the poet Yeats, the poet Ezra Pound, many of his friends, the philosopher, Bertrand Russell, and many other people with whom he corresponded. From this one garner's more about the personality of the man whom Tagore was, a person who lived his values and beliefs, not one who merely just wrote about them. We read a fascinating exchange of ideas with Albert Einstein on "The Nature of Reality." Tagore's mastery of the short story has won him recognition in Bengal and throughout the world. He conveys social, political, and human relationships of the villager and city dweller with equal ability. He gradually exposes feelings and conflicts, and carefully builds suspense until the mystery is revealed or thesituation is resolved often with unexpected consequences. Although fewer poems are included than one would expect, two important ones, "The Sick Bed" and "The Recovery", written toward the end of his life are included. Also, "The Ocean of Peace" a song Tagore himself planned to sing after a play, was instead sung for him at his funeral, which he requested while he was ill. If someone is unfamiliar with Tagore's writing this book is highly recommended as a starting point. It contains a full measure of the author's broad interests and truly represents the universal message, "the unity of mankind" which he attempted to convey in his writing.
Erika Borsos (erikab93)

A mesmerizing journey back to the past
As I flipped through the pages of this 400-pg assortment of Tagore's Letters, Essays, Anecdotes and other like items, I could not help comparing the same to Barbara Holland's "Endangered Pleasures". The parallells are quite striking; however, An Anthology is in a completely different league of it's own. It's always a welcoming experience to read about Noble laureates, but Tagore wasn't just another Noble prize recipient - a man whose works had left the indelible etching in the minds of millions of Indians and steered the country to independence, inspired hopeless souls and rekindled the hopes of victory in a god-forsaken land. Striking yet more are the personal letters of Tagore, letters to his nephew Indira Tagore which I must admit were humorous far beyond what we expect out of a man whom we usually associate with sterner and solemn works. The book clearly draws a calm and serene picture of Calcutta back in those days. Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson has produced a magnificent compilation of Tagore's works that appeal directly to the Westerners and Easterners alike. The book begins with a translation of 'Dak Ghar' (The Post office), and recursively descends down the various phases of his life through essays, letters and other small works. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in learnign more about the man and his most interesting escapades and experiences in life - a truly refreshing journey indeed.

An excerpt - "In certain years in Calcutta, birds strange to the city used to come and build in our banyan tree. They would be off again almost before I had learnt to recognize the dance of their wings, but they brought with them a strange lovely music from their distant jungle homes. So, in the course of our life's journey, some angel from a strange and unexpected quarter may cross our path, speaking of the language of our own soul, and enlarging the boundaries of the heart's possessions. She comes unbidden, and when at last we call for her she is no longer there. But as she goes, she leaves on the drab web of our lives a border of embroidered flowers, and our night and day are for ever enriched." ... Read more

Product Description
He loved the people of his country and strove for the rights of the rural poor to dignity and social justice. ... Read more

Book Description
Discover How Tagore's Spiritual Life and Vision Can Enlighten Your Own

Rabindranath Tagore is one of the most influential mystic poets and teachers of his time. Deeply spiritual and profoundly sensitive, his verse speaks to people from all backgrounds who seek a deeper understanding of self, country, creation, God, and love.

This beautiful sampling of Tagore's two most important works, The Gardener and Gitanjali, offers a glimpse into his spiritual vision that has inspired people around the world. Poems from The Gardener explore youth and earthly love, while excerpts from Gitanjali express divine love and Tagore's difficulty in satisfying it.

Overwhelmingly mystical and lovely in its simplicity, this unique collection offers insight into Tagore's heavenly desires, his ongoing quest for Brahama Vihara, the joy eternal, and illuminates the remarkable diversity that made him the most important bridge between the spirituality of the East and West in the first half of the twentieth century.

Rabindranath Tagore's philosophical and spiritual thoughts transcend all limits of language, culture, and nationality. In his writings, the poet and mystic takes us on a spiritual quest and gives us a glimpse of the infinite in the midst of the finite, unity at the heart of all diversity, and the Divine in all beings and things of the universe.

—from the Preface by Swami Adiswarananda, Minister and Spiritual Leader of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York ... Read more

Book Description
This essay sketches the psychological biography of the modern nation state in India in the early years of the nationalist movement.Most nationalist leaders in India, adopting uncritically the western ideology of nationalism, were then convinced that the absence of a proper nation state and proper nationalist sentiments were major lacunae in Indian society and indices of its backwardness.English education was seen as the principal means by which Indians would be freed of their irrationalities and be knit into a single cohesive political and cultural community.Yet, by the 1920's, some ambivalence towards the idea of a monocultural nation state and towards nationalism itself had appeared within the Indian freedom movement.And this ambivalence was often expressed by some of the most important figures in the movement, by those very persons who would be considered the major builders of India's national identity, some of whom had found out the cultural and moral impact of nationalism not only on its opponents but even on its champions.To some, including Tagore, the alternative was a distinctive civilizational concept of universalism embedded in the tolerance encoded in various traditional ways of life in a highly diverse, plural society.Some sceptics began to associate nationalism with modern colonialism's record of violence, and, while they continued to view an anti-imperialist stand as being an almost sacred reponsibility, they refused to accept the western idea of nationalism as being the inevitable universal of our times.This essay tells the story of one such dissenter, whose reservations about nationalism led him to take up a public position against it, and who built his resistance on India's cultural heritage and plural ways of life.It does so by analysing three of Tagore's novels (all of them available in English translation).It also touches upon similar ambivalences in two other nationalist thinkers of India, to show that Tagore's dissent was not idiosyncratic; it was latent in others too, for it was based on a certain reading of Indian civilization and actual political processes in India, and in a particular native meaning given to the political struggle against imperialism. ... Read more

Book Description

For the first time in English, here is the sequence of poems Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) worked on his entire life-the erotic and emotionally powerful dialogue about Lord Krishna and his young lover Radha.

These "song offerings" are the first poems Tagore ever published, though he passed them off as those of an unknown Bengali religious poet. As the first and last poems Tagore wrote and revised, they represent the entrance and exit to one of the most prolific literary lives of our contemporary world.

These English versions are the result of a five-year collaboration between a Bengali scholar, who provided richly associative literal translations, and the celebrated poet Chase Twichell, who shaped the poems into English.

Book Description
The ten critical essays in this book examine Tagore's best-known novel in relation to the complex nature of colonial modernity. Taking into account Tagore's critique of religious nationalism as well as the historical context of his novel, the essayists show how 'The Home and the World' throws up questions about gender, nationalism, and the novel as a form. This 'Companion' will interest all those who study the Indian novel, post-coloniality, gender representations, and nationalism. Written by highly reputed bilingual scholars in the disciplines of history and literary criticism, this book is an important contribution to interdisciplinary cultural studies of the Indian subcontinent. ... Read more

Book Description
A renaissance figure and marvel that Rabindranath Tagore has been, an analytical predilection of philosophy is hardly enough for comprehending his phenomenal creativity and expression of the highest values of will and feeling. Often the question whether Tagore is a philosopher is quite idle, as idle as whether Nietzsche is a philosopher, or the author of Philosophical Investigations is a philosopher. It is easier to deride the high and naked peaks of synoptic insight and opt for the worship of little gods. If one cares for unfreezing habits of thinking and it ready to see things from a new angle of vision and open windows into the not-yet-seen, then one will have to agree that Tagore is a significant philosophizer and that he compels assent. ... Read more

Book Description
LUCIDLY WRITTEN COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION OF THE SOCIAL THOUGHT OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE WITH A HISTORICAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND OF THE19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES. ... Read more

Book Description
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. ... Read more

Book Description
This collection of essays records a common reader's changing perceptions to the literary achievement of Rabindranath Tagore. It addresses certain central concerns of the writer's work and underlines aspects that have not, so far, received sufficient attention. It does not offer definitive explanations, aiming instead to confront the issues his work raises and study them from different points of view. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This book critically analyzes Tagore's novels.
Hi Readers,I'm thrilled to be here on Amazon.com and to share my views directly with you. Rabindranath Tagore, the first Indian recipient of Noble Prize in literature, is synonymous with hs world renowned,'Gitanjali'.Veryfew knew his novels, which were originally written in Bengali andtranslated into English. My book contains a comprehensive critical analysisof his novels with special emphasis on the women characters, as evidencedform the title. Tagore depicts the Indian society especially the women ofhis period i.e. the late nineteenth century and the first three decades oftwentieth century. He shows the reapid progress of Indian women from beingmere dumb housewives in themale dominated Hindu society to revolutionariesfighting for Indian freedom from th British rule. The has attractedfavorable reviews from literary journals like 'Indiian Journal' andNational dailes like'The Hindu', Madras. I believe that the book attractthe general reader as well as who specialises Indian Writing in English. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

East/West: Gandhi/Tagore
Worth seeking out, warranting reprinting, this is a dense, substantial, but readible biography, less concerned with literary criticism than with the psychological dynamics and political realities of Tagore's creative life.Ultimately, it is about East and West, which is to say, about Tagore the globalist who sought integration of east and west, as contrasted with Gandhi, the nationalist.Tagore believed that the human condition was first of all cultural, Gandhi regarded it as first of all political.This is a comprehensive but penetrating study not only of Tagore, but of modern India.

Very Captivating ...
One day I was visiting my friend, and he gave me this book to read. I always knew Tagore from my childhood, but this relevation was too captivating... I still wish I have the book wherever I see myriad flowers .... A must for a Tagore Fan. ... Read more