Rabindranath Tagore embodies the quintessence of Indian culture. He was a renowned scholar, poet, novelist, playwright, lyricist, and painter. With over a thousand poems, two thousand songs, eight novels, twenty-four plays, volumes of short stories, and a mass of prose, this creative genius has been responsible for reshaping India's literature and music scene.
His collection of songs, Rabindrasangeet, has carved itself as a unique genre of music. His songs cover diverse themes and range from devotional hymns to erotic compositions. Tagore has composed the national anthem of two nations—India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's " Amaar Shonaar Bangla."
In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for Gitanjali, his most acclaimed work. A collection of 157 poems, Gitanjali was first published in 1910 but remains perennially relevant.
In 1939, he established an institute called Vishwa Bharati with the money he had received from the Nobel...
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Prize. This university is one of India's most renowned places for higher learning.
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In my mind, the question is asking to assess what Tagore gave to Indian Literature translated into English. Part of what makes Tagore such a compelling figure in Indian Literature is that he is not writing in English. At a time when so many believed that English was right and indigenous forms of expression were wrong, Tagore pretty much invented the short story in Bengali. His embrace of both social realism and transcendent themes were all composed in his native tongue, making his contributions to the Indian literary canon powerfully compelling and highly significant. Tagore was also one of the first artists of a "globalized" world. This means that his contributions were even more significant because they spoke for a condition of Indians, as well as people all over the world. This was because Tagore had been exposed to literature that many in India had not experienced. Tagore integrated these artists' work into his own:
...other influences on Tagore were British colonialism .... Because of colonialism, he was exposed early in life to the literature of William Shakespeare, John Milton, and George Gordon, Lord Byron, who became his particular favorites, as well as the philosophy of John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Other literary influences (Tagore read them in their original languages) included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Guy de Maupassant.
This ability to combine other literary voices into his own is what makes Tagore responsible for a giant contribution to Indian English Literature.