{{Short description|Indian polymath (1861–1941)}} {{For|the film|Rabindranath Tagore (film){{!}}''Rabindranath Tagore'' (film)}} {{Redirect|Tagore}} {{Pp-move}} {{Protection padlock|small=yes}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2026}} {{Use Indian English|date=January 2026}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | honorific_suffix = FRAS | native_name = <!---Do not add Indic scripts, including Bengali here per WP:INDICSCRIPT--> | name = Rabindranath Tagore | other_names = Bhanusimha | image = 1926 Rabindrath Tagore.jpg | alt = | caption = Autochrome portrait, 1926 | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1861|05|07}} | birth_place = Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Bengal Presidency,<!-- DO NOT LINK PER MOS:GEOLINK --> India<!-- DO NOT LINK PER MOS:GEOLINK --> | death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1941|08|07|1861|05|07}} | death_place = Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Bengal Presidency,<!-- DO NOT LINK PER MOS:GEOLINK --> India<!-- DO NOT LINK PER MOS:GEOLINK --> | citizenship = British Raj | occupation = {{hlist|Poet|novelist|playwright|essayist|composer|painter|philosopher|social reformer|educationist|linguist|grammarian}} | era = Bengal Renaissance | movement = Contextual Modernism | notable_works = {{hlist|''Gitanjali'' | ''Ghare-Baire''|''Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata''| ''Gora'' |''Jana Gana Mana'' |''Rabindra Sangeet'' |''Amar Shonar Bangla'' | (other works)}} | spouse = {{marriage|Mrinalini Devi|1883|1902|end=died}} | children = 5, including Rathindranath Tagore | relatives = Tagore family | awards = {{awards|Nobel Prize in Literature|(1913)}}<!-- do not add image icons such as nobel peace, see :Template:Infobox writer --> | signature = Rabindranath Tagore Signature.svg | signature_alt = Close-up on a Bengali word handwritten with angular, jaunty letters. | module = {{Listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=তবু মনে রেখো - গায়ক-রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর.oga|title=Rabindranath Tagore's voice|type=speech|description=Rabindranath Tagore singing Tabu Mone Rekho<br />Recorded {{circa|1930–40}}}} }} '''<!-- Sir (He renounced his knighthood). See #Santiniketan: 1901–1932 -->Rabindranath Thakur''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRAS}} ({{IPA|bn|roˈbindɾonatʰ ˈʈʰakuɾ|lang}};<ref>{{cite web |url=https://forvo.com/word/%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A5_%E0%A6%A0%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%B0/#bn |title=How to pronounce রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর |website=forvo.com |access-date=20 January 2023 |archive-date=20 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120180141/https://forvo.com/word/%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A5_%E0%A6%A0%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%B0/#bn |url-status=live }}</ref> anglicised as '''Rabindranath Tagore''' {{IPAc-en|audio=Tagor.ogg|r|ə|ˈ|b|ɪ|n|d|r|ə|n|ɑ:|t|_|t|ə|ˈ|ɡ|ɔːr}}; 7 May 1861<ref>25 Baisakh 1268(Bangabda)</ref> – 7 August 1941<ref>21 Shravan 1368(Bangabda)</ref>), also known by his pseudonym '''''Bhanusimha''''' (Sun Lion) was a Bengali polymath (poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter) of the Bengal Renaissance period.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lubet |first=Alex |title=Tagore, not Dylan: The first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize for literature was actually Indian |url=https://qz.com/india/810668/rabindranath-tagore-not-bob-dylan-the-first-lyricist-to-win-the-nobel-prize-for-literature-was-actually-indian/ |work=Quartz India |date=17 October 2016 |access-date=17 August 2022 |archive-date=10 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710082238/https://qz.com/india/810668/rabindranath-tagore-not-bob-dylan-the-first-lyricist-to-win-the-nobel-prize-for-literature-was-actually-indian/ |url-status=live}} *{{cite web|title=Anita Desai and Andrew Robinson – The Modern Resonance of Rabindranath Tagore|url=https://onbeing.org/programs/anita-desai-andrew-robinson-the-modern-resonance-of-rabindranath-tagore|access-date=30 July 2019|publisher=On Being}}</ref><ref name="Stern2001">{{cite book |last1=Stern |first1=Robert W. |title=Democracy and Dictatorship in South Asia: Dominant Classes and Political Outcomes in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh |date=2001 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-275-97041-3 |page=6}}</ref><ref name="Henry Newman 1921 252">{{cite book |last=Newman |first=Henry |title=The Calcutta Review |date=1921 |publisher=University of Calcutta |page=252|quote=I have also found that Bombay is India, Satara is India, Bangalore is India, Madras is India, Delhi, Lahore, the Khyber, Lucknow, Calcutta, Cuttack, Shillong, etc., are all India.}}</ref> In 1913, Tagore became the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and also the first lyricist and non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1913/summary/ |access-date=2026-01-04 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref>{{Sfn|O'Connell|2008}} A significant moulder of culture within the Indian subcontinent, he wrote and composed the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of ''Gitanjali.''{{Sfn|The Nobel Foundation}} Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his elegant prose and magical poetry were widely popular in the Indian subcontinent.{{Sfn|Sen|1997}} He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal",<ref>{{cite news|title=Work of Rabindranath Tagore celebrated in London|publisher=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33543786|access-date=15 July 2015|archive-date=9 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170109202858/http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33543786|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Stern2001" /><ref name="Henry Newman 1921 252" /> Tagore was known by the sobriquets '''Gurudev''', '''Kobiguru''', and '''Biswokobi'''.{{efn|''Gurudev'' translates as "divine mentor", ''Bishokobi'' translates as "poet of the world" and ''Kobiguru'' translates as "great poet".{{Sfn|Sil|2005}} }}
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Jessore and Bardhaman districts, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old.<ref name="tagore1">* {{cite book |last=Tagore |first=Rathindranath |title=On the edges of time |date=December 1978 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-20760-0 |edition=New |pages=2}} * {{cite journal |last=Mukherjee |first=Mani Shankar |date=May 2010 |title=Timeless Genius |journal=Pravasi Bharatiya |pages=89, 90}} * {{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Edward |title=Rabindranath Tagore : Poet And Dramatist |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1948 |page=13}}</ref>{{Sfn|Tagore|1984|p=xii}} At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym ''Bhānusiṃha'' ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics.{{Sfnm|Thompson|1926|1pp=27–28|Dasgupta|1993|2p=20}} By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent critic of nationalism,<ref>"Nationalism is a Great Menace" Tagore and Nationalism, by Radhakrishnan M. and Roychowdhury D. from Hogan, P. C.; Pandit, L. (2003), Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, pp 29–40</ref> he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.<ref>{{cite web|title=Visva-Bharti-Facts and Figures at a Glance|url=http://www.visva-bharati.ac.in/at_a_glance/at_a_glance.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070523132100/http://www.visva-bharati.ac.in/at_a_glance/at_a_glance.htm|archive-date=23 May 2007}}</ref>{{Sfnm|Datta|2002|1p=2|Kripalani|2005a|2pp=6–8|Kripalani|2005b|3pp=2–3|Thompson|1926|4p=12}}
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. His poetry, short stories, and novels were both praised and criticised for their lyricism, colloquial tone, naturalism, and philosophical introspection. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Sonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was also inspired by his work.<ref name="RB1">* {{cite book |last1=de Silva |first1=K. M. |author-link1=K. M. de Silva |last2=Wriggins |first2=Howard |author-link2=William Howard Wriggins |title=J. R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka: a Political Biography – Volume One: The First Fifty Years |date=1988 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |isbn=0-8248-1183-6 |page=368 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6orPBJCSPhIC }} * {{cite news |title=Man of the series: Nobel laureate Tagore |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/off-the-field/Man-of-the-series-Nobel-laureate-Tagore/articleshow/7854172.cms |work=The Times of India |agency=Times News Network |date=3 April 2011 |archive-date=3 November 2020 |access-date=6 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201103012007/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/off-the-field/Man-of-the-series-Nobel-laureate-Tagore/articleshow/7854172.cms |url-status=live }} * {{cite news |title=How Tagore inspired Sri Lanka's national anthem |url=http://ibnlive.in.com/news/how-tagore-inspired-sri-lankas-national-anthem/255713-40-103.html |work=IBN Live |date=8 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120510201526/http://ibnlive.in.com/news/how-tagore-inspired-sri-lankas-national-anthem/255713-40-103.html |archive-date=10 May 2012 }}</ref> His song "Banglar Mati Banglar Jol" has been adopted as the state anthem of West Bengal.
== Family background == {{See also|Tagore family}}
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur.<ref name="Nasrin">{{cite book |last1=Nasrin |first1=Mithun B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3blgCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |title=Colloquial Bengali |last2=Wurff |first2=W. A. M. Van Der |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-30613-9 |page=1}}</ref> The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Pirali Brahmin ('Pirali' historically carried a stigmatised and pejorative connotation; an insult that ostracised Piralis<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tagore and Caste: From Brahmacharyasram to Swadeshi Movement (1901–07) |url=https://www.sahapedia.org/tagore-and-caste-brahmacharyasram-swadeshi-movement-1901%E2%80%9307 |access-date=2025-10-15 |website=Sahapedia |language=en}}</ref> from other Brahmin sub-castes)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ahmad |first=Zarin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jurkDwAAQBAJ&dq=rabindranath+tagore+pirali+brahmin&pg=PT16 |title=Delhi's Meatscapes: Muslim Butchers in a Transforming Mega-City |date=2018-06-14 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-909538-4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fraser |first=Bashabi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W3uhDwAAQBAJ&dq=rabindranath+tagore+pirali+brahmin&pg=PT22 |title=Rabindranath Tagore |date=2019-09-15 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=978-1-78914-178-8}}</ref> who originally belonged to a village named ''Kush'' in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book ''Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak'' that {{blockquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.<ref name="tagore1" />}}
== Life and events == === Early life: 1861–1878 === {{Main|Early life of Rabindranath Tagore}}
thumb|Young Tagore in London, 1879 {{Quote box|quote=The last two days a storm has been raging, similar to the description in my song—''Jhauro jhauro borishe baridhara'' [... amidst it] a hapless, homeless man drenched from top to toe standing on the roof of his steamer [...] the last two days I have been singing this song over and over [...] as a result the pelting sound of the intense rain, the wail of the wind, the sound of the heaving Gorai River, [...] have assumed a fresh life and found a new language and I have felt like a major actor in this new musical drama unfolding before me. |source = — Letter to Indira Devi.{{Sfn |Ghosh|2011}} |width=30% |quoted=1}}
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta,<ref name="nobelfacts">{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/tagore-facts.html|title=Rabindranath Tagore – Facts|publisher=Nobel Foundation|access-date=14 June 2017|archive-date=11 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170611070728/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/tagore-facts.html|url-status=live}}</ref> the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).{{efn|Tagore was born at No. 6 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko – the address of the main mansion (the ''Jorasanko Thakurbari'') inhabited by the Jorasanko branch of the Tagore clan, which had earlier suffered an acrimonious split. Jorasanko was located in the Bengali section of Calcutta, near Chitpur Road.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=34}}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=37}} Dwarkanath Tagore was his paternal grandfather.{{Sfn|The News Today|2011}} Debendranath had formulated the Brahmoist philosophies espoused by his friend Ram Mohan Roy, and became focal in Brahmo society after Roy's death.{{Sfn|Roy|1977|pp=28–30}}{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|pp=8–9}}}}
[[File:Rabindranath-Tagore-Mrinalini-Devi-1883.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=Black-and-white photograph of a finely dressed man and woman: the man, smiling, stands with the hand on the hip and elbow turned outward with a shawl draped over his shoulders and in Bengali formal wear. In front of him, the woman, seated, is in an elaborate dress and shawl; she leans against a carved table supporting a vase and flowing leaves. |Tagore and his wife Mrinalini Devi, 1883]]
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood, and his father travelled widely.{{Sfn|Thompson|1926|p=20}} The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children.{{Sfn|Som|2010|p=16}} Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright.{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|p=10}} His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sree |first1=S. Prasanna |title=Woman in the novels of Shashi Deshpande : a study |date=2003 |publisher=Sarup & Sons |location=New Delhi |isbn=81-7625-381-2 |page=13 |edition=1st |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-bXCWuy8ccMC |access-date=12 April 2016}}</ref> Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Paul |first1=S. K. |title=The Complete Poems of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali: Texts and Critical Evaluation |date=1 January 2006 |publisher=Sarup & Sons |isbn=978-81-7625-660-5 |page=2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IproIa_rIv8C |access-date=12 April 2016}}</ref>
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited.{{Sfn|Thompson|1926|pp=21–24}}{{Sfn|Das|2009}} His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject.{{Sfn|Dutta |Robinson|1995|pp=48–49}} Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later, he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=50}}
After his ''upanayan'' (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Shantiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa.{{sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=55–56}}<ref name="Stewart_2003_91">{{Harvnb|Tagore|Stewart|Twichell|2003|p=91}}.</ref> During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and Nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple, for which both father and son were regular visitors. He writes in his ''My Reminiscences'' (1912):{{Blockquote|text= The golden temple of Amritsar comes back to me like a dream. Many a morning have I accompanied my father to this Gurudarbar of the Sikhs in the middle of the lake. There the sacred chanting resounds continually. My father, seated amidst the throng of worshippers, would sometimes add his voice to the hymn of praise, and finding a stranger joining in their devotions they would wax enthusiastically cordial, and we would return loaded with the sanctified offerings of sugar crystals and other sweets.<ref>{{cite web |title=A journey with my Father |work=My Reminiscences |url=http://www.online-literature.com/tagore-rabindranath/my-reminiscences/14/ |access-date=10 May 2017 |archive-date=24 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171024075805/http://www.online-literature.com/tagore-rabindranath/my-reminiscences/14/ |url-status=live }}</ref> }} He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and several articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.<ref name="Dev 2014">{{Cite journal |last=Dev |first=Amiya |year=2014 |title=Tagore and Sikhism |url=https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article5261.html |journal=Mainstream Weekly}}</ref> * '''Poems on Guru Gobind Singh:''' নিষ্ফল উপহার Nishfal-upahaar (1888, translated as "Futile Gift"), গুরু গোবিন্দ Guru Gobinda (1899) and শেষ শিক্ষা Shesh Shiksha (1899, translated as "Last Teachings")<ref name="Dev 2014"/> * '''Poem on Banda Bahadur:''' বন্দী বীর Bandi-bir (The Prisoner Warrior, written in 1888 or 1898)<ref name="Dev 2014"/> * '''Poem on Bhai Torusingh:''' প্রার্থনাতীত দান (prarthonatit dan – Unsolicited gift) written in 1888 or 1898<ref name="Dev 2014"/> * '''Poem on Nehal Singh:''' নীহাল সিংহ (Nihal Singh) written in 1935.<ref name="Dev 2014"/>
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha.<ref name="Stewart_2003_3">{{Harvnb|Tagore|Stewart|Twichell|2003|p=3}}.</ref> Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet.{{Sfn|Tagore|Stewart|Twichell|2003|p=3}} He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman").{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=45}}{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|p=265}} Published in the same year, ''Sandhya Sangit'' (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
=== Shilaidaha: 1878–1901 === [[File:রবীন্দ্র কুঠিবাড়ি শিলাইদহ কুষ্টিয়া.jpg|alt=|left|thumb|Tagore's house in Shilaidaha, Bangladesh]]
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878.{{Sfn|Ghosh|2011}} He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him.{{Sfn|Dutta |Robinson|1995|p=68}} He briefly read law at University College London, but again left, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays ''Coriolanus'', and ''Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne.'' Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored ''kirtans'' and ''tappas'' and Brahmo hymnody was subdued.{{Sfn|Ghosh|2011}}{{Sfn|Thompson|1926|p=31}} In 1880, he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each.{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|pp=11–12}} After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound influence within Bengal itself but received little national attention.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Makers of Modern India |last=Guha |first=Ramachandra |author-link=Ramachandra Guha |publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University |year=2011 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |page=171}}</ref> In 1883, he married 10-year-old<ref name="Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore.">{{cite book |last1=Dutta |first1=Krishna |last2=Robinson |first2=Andrew |title=Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-59018-1 |page=13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v08xxlHuWtUC |access-date=27 April 2016}}</ref> Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|p=373}} [[File:Tagore family boat Padma.jpg|thumb|Tagore family boat (bajra or budgerow), the "Padma".]]
In 1890, Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his ''Manasi'' poems (1890), among his best-known work.{{Sfn|Scott |2009|p=10}} As ''Zamindar Babu'', Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the ''Padma'', the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers, who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|pp=109–111}} He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore.<ref>{{Citation |last=Chowdury |first=A. A. |year=1992 |title=Lalon Shah |publisher=Bangla Academy |place=Dhaka, Bangladesh |isbn=984-07-2597-1}}</ref> Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's ''Sadhana'' period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive;{{Sfn|Thompson|1926|p=20}} in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story ''Galpaguchchha''.{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=45}} Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.{{Sfn|Dutta |Robinson|1995|p=109}}
=== Santiniketan: 1901–1932 === {{Main|Middle years of Rabindranath Tagore}}
[[File:Tagore-THU.jpg|thumb |left|alt=Posed group black-and-white photograph of seven Chinese men, possibly academics, in formal wear: two wear European-style suits, the five others wear Chinese traditional dress; four of the seven sit on the floor in the foreground; another sits on a chair behind them at centre-left; two others stand in the background. They surround an eighth man who is robed, bearded, and sitting in a chair placed at centre-left. Four elegant windows are behind them in a line. |Tsinghua University, 1924|275x275px]]
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—''The Mandir''—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=133}} There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in <!--19 January -->1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|pp=139–140}} He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published ''Naivedya'' (1901) and ''Kheya'' (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In 1912, Tagore translated his 1910 work ''Gitanjali'' into English. While on a trip to London, he shared these poems with admirers, including William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound. London's India Society published the work in a limited edition, and the American magazine ''Poetry'' published a selection from ''Gitanjali''.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-05-07 |title=Rabindranath Tagore |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rabindranath-tagore |access-date=2022-05-08 |website=Poetry Foundation |archive-date=3 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200603122212/https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rabindranath-tagore |url-status=live }}</ref> In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 ''Gitanjali: Song Offerings''.{{Sfn|Hjärne|1913}} He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Our Pasts: Volume 3, Part 2 |publisher=NCERT |year=2014 |isbn=978-81-7450-838-6 |location=India |page=148 |edition=Revised 2014 |type=History text book |chapter=The Rowlatt Satyagraha |editor1=Anil Sethi |editor2=Guha |editor3=Khullar |editor4=Nair |editor5=Prasad |editor6=Anwar |editor7=Singh |editor8=Mohapatra}}</ref> Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my countrymen."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://dart.columbia.edu/library/tagore-letter/letter.html |title=Letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India |publisher=Digital Anthropology Resources for Teaching, Columbia University and the London School of Economics |access-date=29 August 2018 |archive-date=25 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190825105408/http://dart.columbia.edu/library/tagore-letter/letter.html |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Tagore-renounced-his-Knighthood-in-protest-for-Jalianwalla-Bagh-mass-killing/articleshow/7967616.cms |title=Tagore renounced his Knighthood in protest for Jalianwalla Bagh mass killing |newspaper=The Times of India |date=13 April 2011 |archive-date=10 September 2021 |access-date=29 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210910060559/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Tagore-renounced-his-Knighthood-in-protest-for-Jalianwalla-Bagh-mass-killing/articleshow/7967616.cms |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.<ref name=star>{{cite news |last=Mortada |first=Syed Ahmed |url=https://www.thedailystar.net/when-tagore-came-to-sylhet-26407|title=When Tagore came to Sylhet}}</ref>
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ''ashram''. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's ''Swaraj'' protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=239–240}} He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge".{{Sfn|Dutta| Robinson|1995|p=242}}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|pp=308–309}} In the early 1930s, he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=303}}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=309}}
=== Twilight years: 1932–1941 === thumb|right|259x259px|In Germany, 1931 thumb|Last picture of Rabindranath, 1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognising in his words the voice of essential humanity."{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=317}} To the end, Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic ''karma'', as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=312–313}} He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal and detailed this newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film {{Lang|bn-latn|Apur Sansar}}.{{Sfn|Dutta| Robinson|1995|pp=335–338 }}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|p=342}} Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works ''Punashcha'' (1932), ''Shes Saptak'' (1935), and ''Patraput'' (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— ''Chitra<!--ngada-->'' (1914), ''Shyama'' (1939), and ''Chandalika'' (1938)— and in his novels— ''Dui Bon'' (1933), ''Malancha'' (1934), and ''Char Adhyay'' (1934).<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/prose-over-verse/article5335356.ece |title=A 100 years ago, Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for poetry. But his novels are more enduring |work=The Hindu |access-date=17 September 2019 |archive-date=6 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806161509/https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/prose-over-verse/article5335356.ece |url-status=live }}</ref>
{{Quote box | quote = Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. | source = Verse 292, ''Stray Birds'', 1916. | align = right | width = 20% | fontsize = 85% | quoted = 1 }}
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in ''Visva-Parichay'', a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude.{{Sfn|Tagore| Radice|2004|p=28}} He wove the ''process'' of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in ''Se'' (1937), ''Tin Sangi'' (1940), and ''Galpasalpa'' (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest.{{Sfn|Dutta |Robinson|1995 |p=338}}{{Sfn |Indo-Asian News Service|2005}} A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80.<ref name="nobelfacts" /> He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=367}}{{Sfn|Dutta| Robinson|1995|p=363}} The date is still mourned.{{Sfn|The Daily Star|2009}} A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day before a scheduled operation: his last poem.{{Sfn|Sigi|2006|p=89}}
{{blockquote|I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return, if I receive anything—some love, some forgiveness—then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end.}}
== Travels == [[File:Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore.jpg|thumb|Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore, February 1940]][[File:Rabindranath with Einstein.jpg|thumbnail|Rabindranath with Einstein in 1930]] [[File:Tagore Iran.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Group shot of dozens of people assembled at the entrance of an imposing building; two columns in view. All subjects face the camera. All but two are dressed in lounge suits: a woman at front-center wears light-coloured Persian garb; the man to her left, first row, wears a white beard and dark-coloured oriental cap and robes.|At the Iranian Majlis (parliament) in Tehran, Iran, 1932]]
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents.{{Sfn|Dutta| Robinson|1995|pp=374–376}} In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others.{{Sfn|Dutta| Robinson|1995|pp=178–179}} Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of ''Gitanjali''; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States{{Sfn|University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}} and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends.{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty |1961|p=1–2}} From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan<ref>{{Cite web|last=Nathan|first=Richard|date=12 March 2021|title=Changing Nations: The Japanese Girl With a Book|url=https://www.redcircleauthors.com/news-and-views/changing-nations-the-japanese-girl-with-a-book/|website=Red Circle Authors|access-date=12 March 2021|archive-date=29 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211129071932/https://www.redcircleauthors.com/news-and-views/changing-nations-the-japanese-girl-with-a-book/|url-status=live}}</ref> and the United States.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|p=206}} He denounced nationalism.{{Sfn|Hogan|Pandit |2003|pp=56–58}} His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=182}}
Shortly after returning home, the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged {{USD}}100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|p=253}} A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires,{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|p=256}} an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In <!--30 -->May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson |1995|p=267}} Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon ''Il Duce''{{'}}s fascist finesse.
{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=270–271}} He had earlier enthused: "[w]without any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigor in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".{{Sfn|Kundu|2009}}
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived in Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree, and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.<ref>{{Cite news |title=The Tagore Connection |url=https://www.freepressjournal.in/weekend/the-tagore-connection |access-date=2022-05-05 |work=The Free Press Journal}}</ref>
{{Quote box | quote = Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world that dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization? | source = — Interviewed by Einstein, 14 April 1930.{{Sfn|Tagore|1930|pp=222–225}} | align = right | width = 20% | fontsize = 85% | quoted = 1 }}
On 14 July 1927, Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose ''Jatri'' (1929).{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=1}} In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures{{efn|On the "idea of the humanity of our God, or the divinity of Man the Eternal".}} and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=289–292}} There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness".{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=303–304}} He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=292–293}} In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi.{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=2}}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=315}} In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Romain Rolland.{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=99}}{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|pp=100–103}} Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=317}} Vice-president of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct. Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.newkerala.com/news/newsplus/worldnews-17033.html |title=Vice President speaks on Rabindranath Tagore |publisher=Newkerala.com |date=8 May 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120604043204/http://www.newkerala.com/news/newsplus/worldnews-17033.html |archive-date=4 June 2012 |access-date=7 August 2016}}</ref>
== Works == {{Main|Works of Rabindranath Tagore}}
{{See also|List of works of Rabindranath Tagore}} Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps the most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including ''Europe Jatrir Patro'' (''Letters from Europe'') and ''Manusher Dhormo'' (''The Religion of Man''). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled ''Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali'') of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes.{{Sfn|Pandey|2011}} In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish ''The Essential Tagore'', the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.<ref>{{Citation |title=The Essential Tagore |publisher=Harvard University Press |url=http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057906 |access-date=19 December 2011 |archive-date=12 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210312041005/https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057906 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
=== Drama === [[File:Valmiki Pratibha Indira Devi & Rabindranath Tagore.jpg|thumb|right|Tagore performing the title role in ''Valmiki Pratibha'' (1881) with his niece Indira Devi as the goddess Lakshmi]]
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty – ''Valmiki Pratibha'' which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote ''Visarjan'' (an adaptation of his novella ''Rajarshi''), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play ''Dak Ghar'' (''The Post Office''; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—''Dak Ghar'' dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds".{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|pp=21–22}}{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|pp=123–124}} Another is Tagore's ''Chandalika'' (''Untouchable Girl''), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water.{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=124}} In ''Raktakarabi'' ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of ''Yaksha puri''.{{Sfn|Ray|2007|pp=147–148}}
''Chitrangada'', ''Chandalika'', and ''Shyama'' are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as ''Rabindra Nritya Natya''.
=== Short stories === [[File:Sabujpatra logo (1914-1927).jpg|thumb|upright|Cover of the ''Sabuj Patra'' magazine, edited by Pramatha Chaudhuri]] Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman").<ref name="Chakravarty_1961_45">{{Harvnb|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=45}}.</ref> With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre.{{sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1997|p=265}} The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume ''Galpaguchchha'', which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories.<ref name="Chakravarty_1961_45" /> Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "''Sadhana''" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings.<ref name="Chakravarty_1961_45" /> There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point.<ref name="Chakravarty_1961_45-46">{{Harvnb|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|pp=45–46}}</ref> In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden.<ref name="Chakravarty_1961_46">{{Harvnb|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=46}}</ref> Many of the other ''Galpaguchchha'' stories were written in Tagore's ''Sabuj Patra'' period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.<ref name="Chakravarty_1961_45" />
=== Novels === Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them ''Nastanirh'' (1901), ''Noukadubi'' (1906), ''Chaturanga'' (1916) and ''Char Adhyay'' (1934).
In ''Chokher Bali'' (1902–1903), Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness.
''Ghare Baire'' (''The Home and the World'', 1916), through the lens of the idealistic ''zamindar'' protagonist Nikhil, excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the ''Swadeshi'' movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's likely mortal—wounding.{{sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=192–194}}
His longest novel, ''Gora'' (1907–1910), raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with ''Ghare Baire'', matters of self-identity (''jāti''), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle.{{sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=154–155}} In it, an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular ''gora''—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy but the extremist reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these, Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as ''dharma.''"{{Sfn|Hogan|2000|pp=213–214}}
In ''Jogajog'' (''Yogayog'', ''Relationships'', 1929), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of ''Śiva-Sati'', exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roué of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; ''pathos'' depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honor; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry.{{Sfn|Mukherjee|2004}} The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: ''Shesher Kabita'' (1929) — translated twice as ''Last Poem'' and ''Farewell Song'' — is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore".
Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations, by Satyajit Ray for ''Charulata'' (based on ''Nastanirh'') in 1964 and ''Ghare Baire'' in 1984, and by several others filmmakers such as Satu Sen for Chokher Bali already in 1938, when Tagore was still alive.
=== Poetry === [[File:Gitanjali 11 title page.jpg|thumb|165px|Title page of the 1913 Macmillan edition of Tagore's ''Gitanjali'']] thumb|right|upright|alt=Three-verse handwritten composition; each verse has original Bengali with English-language translation below: "My fancies are fireflies: specks of living light twinkling in the dark. The same voice murmurs in these desultory lines, which is born in wayside pansies letting hasty glances pass by. The butterfly does not count years but moments, and therefore has enough time."|Part of a poem written by Tagore in Hungary, 1926
Internationally, ''Gitanjali'' ({{langx|bn|গীতাঞ্জলি}}) is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and the second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes|title=All Nobel Prizes|publisher=Nobel Foundation|access-date=22 February 2020|archive-date=15 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615233947/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes|url-status=live}}</ref>
Besides ''Gitanjali'', other notable works include ''Manasi'', ''Sonar Tori'' ("Golden Boat"), ''Balaka'' ("Wild Geese" – the title being a metaphor for migrating souls){{sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=1}}
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other ''rishi''-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen.{{Sfn|Roy|1977|p=201}} Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon.{{Sfn|Tagore|Stewart|Twichell|2003|p=94}}{{Sfn|Urban|2001|p=18}} These, rediscovered and re-popularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois ''bhadralok'' religious and social orthodoxy.{{Sfn|Urban|2001|pp=6–7}}{{Sfn|Urban|2001|p=16}} During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the ''moner manush'', the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the ''jeevan devata''—the demiurge or the "living God within".{{Sfn|Ghosh|2011}} This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over seventy years.{{Sfn|Tagore|Stewart|Twichell|2003|p=95}}{{Sfn|Tagore|Stewart|Twichell|2003|p=7}}
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include ''Africa'' and ''Camalia'', which are among the better-known of his latter poems.
=== Songs (Rabindra Sangeet) === Tagore was a prolific composer, with around 2,230 songs to his credit.<ref name="DasguptaGuha2013">{{cite book |author1=Sanjukta Dasgupta |author2=Chinmoy Guha |title=Tagore-At Home in the World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8zfX4llLjyUC |date=2013 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-81-321-1084-2 |page=254}}</ref> His songs are known as ''rabindrasangit'' ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the ''thumri'' style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=94}} They emulated the tonal colour of classical ''ragas'' to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully, others newly blended elements of different ''ragas''.{{Sfn|Dasgupta|2001}} Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not ''bhanga gaan'', the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.{{Sfn|Ghosh|2011}}
thumb|right|250px|Rabindranath Tagore reciting Jana Gana Mana In 1971, ''Amar Shonar Bangla'' became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. ''Jana Gana Mana'' was written in ''shadhu-bhasha'', a Sanskritised form of Bengali,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/story/10-things-to-know-about-india-39-s-national-anthem/AgXhvvzhpjYavQ?hl=en|title=10 things to know about Indian national Anthem|access-date=21 July 2021|archive-date=21 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721053742/https://artsandculture.google.com/story/10-things-to-know-about-india-39-s-national-anthem/AgXhvvzhpjYavQ?hl=en|url-status=live}}</ref> and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn ''Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata'' that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress,<ref>{{cite web|title=Tagore and Jana Gana Mana|url=http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-chatterjee310803.htm|publisher=countercurrents.org|last=Chatterjee|first=Monish R.|date=13 August 2003|access-date=23 October 2012|archive-date=17 September 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080917033936/http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-chatterjee310803.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.<ref name="RB1" />
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the ''Modern Review'' observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs".{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=359}} Tagore influenced ''sitar'' maestro Vilayat Khan and ''sarodiyas'' Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.{{Sfn|Dasgupta|2001}}
=== Art works === {{multiple image|caption_align=center|header_align=center | image1 = Rabindranath Tagore Rabindra Bhavana collection 2155 pastel mask.jpg | width1 = 150 | alt1 = Black-and-white photograph of a stylised sketch depicting a tribal funerary mask. | caption1 = Primitivism: a pastel-coloured rendition of a Malagan mask from northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea | image2 = Rabindranath Tagore Ra-Tha seal initials.jpg | width2 = 154 | alt2 = Black-and-white close-up photograph of a piece of wood boldly painted in unmixed solid strokes of black and white in a stylised semblance to "ro" and "tho" from the Bengali syllabary. | caption2 = Tagore's Bengali-language initials, the letters র and ঠ, are worked into this "Ro-Tho" (of RAbindranath THAkur) wooden seal, stylistically similar to designs used in traditional Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Tagore often embellished his manuscripts with such art.{{Sfn|Dyson|2001}} }} At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|p=222}}—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red, green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein.{{Sfn|Dyson|2001}} His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.{{Sfn|Ghosh|2011}}
{{blockquote|Surrounded by several painters Rabindranath had always wanted to paint. Writing and music, playwriting and acting came to him naturally and almost without training, as it did to several others in his family, and in even greater measure. But painting eluded him. Yet he tried repeatedly to master the art and there are several references to this in his early letters and reminiscence. In 1900 for instance, when he was nearing forty and already a celebrated writer, he wrote to Jagadish Chandra Bose, "You will be surprised to hear that I am sitting with a sketchbook drawing. Needless to say, the pictures are not intended for any salon in Paris, they cause me not the least suspicion that the national gallery of any country will suddenly decide to raise taxes to acquire them. But, just as a mother lavishes most affection on her ugliest son, so I feel secretly drawn to the very skill that comes to me least easily." He also realized that he was using the eraser more than the pencil, and dissatisfied with the results he finally withdrew, deciding it was not for him to become a painter.<ref>R. Siva Kumar (2011) ''The Last Harvest: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore''.</ref>}}
[[File:Rabindranath Tagore Woman Face.jpg|thumb|Face of a woman, inspired by Kadambari Devi.{{sfn|Som|2010|pp=144–145}} Ink on paper. National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi]] India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ngmaindia.gov.in/ngma_rabindranath-tagore-gallery.asp|title=National Gallery of Modern Art – Mumbai:Virtual Galleries|access-date=23 October 2017|archive-date=23 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023231023/http://ngmaindia.gov.in/ngma_rabindranath-tagore-gallery.asp|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://ngmaindia.gov.in/collections.asp|title=National Gallery of Modern Art:Collections|access-date=23 October 2017}}</ref>
In 1937, Tagore's paintings were removed from Berlin's baroque Crown Prince Palace by the Nazi regime and five were included in the inventory of "degenerate art" compiled by the Nazis in 1941–1942.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2022-11-21 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: When Hitler purged India Nobel laureate's paintings |publisher=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63651606 |access-date=2022-11-21}}</ref>
==Philosophy and religion== {{Expand section|date=January 2026}} An early introduction to Tagore's thought for Western readers was written by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in 1918, who analyzed Tagore's views on philosophy, religion, art and poetry, using Tagore's works available in English up to that time. He quotes extensively from Tagore's poetry collections ''Gitanjali'' (1912), ''The Crescent Moon'' (1913), ''The Gardener'' (1913), ''Fruit-Gathering'' (1916), ''Stray Birds'' (1916), the essay collections ''Sadhana: The Realisation of Life'' (1913) and ''Personality'' (1917), as well as the drama ''The King of the Dark Chamber'' (1910) and the principal ''Upanishads''.<ref>Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli (1918). ''[https://archive.org/details/tagorephilosoph00radhuoft/page/n3/mode/2up The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore]''. Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London.</ref> Radhakrishnan interprets Tagore's thought largely through the lens of Advaita Vedanta, causing differences with Tagore’s more poetic, humanistic, and socially critical outlook.<ref>Nirmal, A. P. (1989). ''[https://books.google.com/books/about/Religious_Philosophy_of_Tagore_Radhakris.html?id=WcuAEQAAQBAJ Religious Philosophy of Tagore & Radhakrishnan: A Comparative and Analytical Study]''. Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House, New Delhi.</ref>
Tagore later elaborated his religious and philosophical ideas in his 1922 lectures published as ''Creative Unity'',<ref>Tagore, Rabindranath (1922). ''[https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/23136 Creative Unity]''. Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London.</ref> and his 1931 Hibbert Lectures at Oxford University, published as ''The Religion of Man''.<ref>Tagore, Rabindranath (1931). ''The Religion of Man''. George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London.</ref>
A contemporary analysis was done by Kalyan Sen Gupta.<ref>Gupta, Kalyan Sen (2013). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=JCOgCwAAQBAJ The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore]''. Routledge.</ref>
== Politics == {{Main|Political views of Rabindranath Tagore}}
[[File:Gandhi-Tagore-cropped.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Photo of a formal function, an aged bald man and old woman in simple white robes are seated side-by-side with legs folded on a rug-strewn dais; the man looks at a bearded and garlanded old man seated on another dais at left. In the foreground, various ceremonial objects are arrayed; in the background, dozens of other people observe.|Tagore hosts Gandhi and wife Kasturba at Santiniketan in 1940.]]
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists,{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|p=127}}{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|p=210}}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=304}} and these views were first revealed in ''Manast'', which was mostly composed in his twenties.{{Sfn|Scott|2009|p=10}} Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu.{{Sfn|Brown|1948|p=306}} Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in ''The Cult of the Charkha'', an acrid 1925 essay.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=261}} According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Sen|first=Amartya|title=Tagore And His India|url=https://www.countercurrents.org/culture-sen281003.htm|access-date=1 January 2021|work=countercurrents.org|archive-date=5 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205044935/https://www.countercurrents.org/culture-sen281003.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|pp=239–240}}{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=181}}
{{Quote box | quote = So I repeat we never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity. | source = — ''Sādhanā: The Realisation of Life'', 1916.{{Sfn|Tagore|1916|p=111}} | align = right | width = 20% | fontsize = 85% | quoted = 1 }}
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into an argument.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=204}} Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=215–216}} Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi.{{Sfn|Chakraborty|Bhattacharya|2001|p=157}} Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism,{{Sfn|Mehta|1999}} Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=306–307}}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=339}}
=== Repudiation of knighthood === {{See also|List of people who have declined a British honour#Renouncing an honour}}
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote<ref name="TOI2011-04">{{cite news|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Tagore-renounced-his-Knighthood-in-protest-for-Jalianwalla-Bagh-mass-killing/articleshow/7967616.cms|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512110157/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-13/india/29413338_1_knighthood-protest-honour|url-status=live|archive-date=12 May 2013|title=Tagore renounced his Knighthood in protest for Jalianwalla Bagh mass killing|date=13 April 2011|access-date=17 February 2012|work=The Times of India|location=Mumbai}}</ref> {{blockquote|The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part, wish to stand, shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so-called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings.}}
== Shantiniketan and Visva-Bharati == [[File:Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan.jpg|thumb|Kala Bhavan (Institute of Fine Arts), Shantiniketan, India]] Tagore despised rote classroom schooling, as shown in his short story, "The Parrot's Training", wherein a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death.{{Sfn|Tagore|1997b|p=267}}{{Sfn|Tagore|Pal|2004}} Visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, Tagore conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography."{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=204}} The school, which he named Visva-Bharati,{{efn|Etymology of "Visva-Bharati": from the Sanskrit for "world" or "universe" and the name of a Rigvedic goddess ("Bharati") associated with Saraswati, the Hindu patron of learning.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=220}} "Visva-Bharati" also translates as "India in the World".}} had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=220}} Tagore employed a ''brahmacharya'' system: ''gurus'' gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies,{{Sfn|Roy|1977|p=175}} and his duties as steward-mentor at Shantiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks.{{Sfn|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961|p=27}} He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=221}}
=== Theft of Nobel Prize === On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/tagores-nobel-prize-stolen/articleshow/582074.cms |title=Tagore's Nobel Prize stolen |work=The Times of India |date=25 March 2004 |access-date=10 July 2013 |archive-date=11 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150111094112/http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Tagores-Nobel-Prize-stolen/articleshow/582074.cms |url-status=live }}</ref> On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sweden-to-present-India-replicas-of-Tagores-Nobel/articleshow/949065.cms |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130710163535/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2004-12-07/india/27146417_1_rabindranath-tagore-s-nobel-prize-visva-bharati-university-replicas |url-status=live |archive-date=10 July 2013 |title=Sweden to present India replicas of Tagore's Nobel |work=The Times of India |date=7 December 2004 |access-date=10 July 2013}}</ref> It inspired the fictional film ''Nobel Chor''. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri, accused of sheltering the thieves, was arrested.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Tagores-Nobel-medal-theft-Baul-singer-arrested/articleshow/55626542.cms |title=Tagore's Nobel medal theft: Baul singer arrested |work=The Times of India |access-date=31 March 2019 |archive-date=4 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190404175727/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Tagores-Nobel-medal-theft-Baul-singer-arrested/articleshow/55626542.cms |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.news18.com/news/india/tagores-nobel-medal-theft-folk-singer-arrested-from-bengal-1316033.html |title=Tagore's Nobel Medal Theft: Folk Singer Arrested From Bengal |work=News18 |access-date=31 March 2019 |archive-date=31 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190331130916/https://www.news18.com/news/india/tagores-nobel-medal-theft-folk-singer-arrested-from-bengal-1316033.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
== Influence and legacy == {{See also|List of things named after Rabindranath Tagore}} [[File:Hungary, Balatonfüred, Rabindranath promenade in autumn - Tagore statue.jpg|thumb|upright|Bust of Rabindranath in Tagore promenade, Balatonfüred, Hungary]] [[File:Rabindranath_Tagore_statue_in_Dublin,_Ireland_01.jpg|thumb|Rabindranath Tagore statue in Dublin, Ireland]] Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: ''Kabipranam'', his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (US); ''Rabindra Path Parikrama'' walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries.{{Sfn|University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}}{{Sfn|Chakrabarti|2001}}{{Sfn|Hatcher|2001}} Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker".{{Sfn|Hatcher|2001}}<ref name=":0" /> Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 ''Rabīndra Rachanāvalī''—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".{{Sfn|Kämpchen|2003}}
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution;{{Sfn|Farrell|2000|p=162}} in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=202}} In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh.<ref>Hue-Tam Ho Tai, ''Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution'', p. 76–82</ref> Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný,{{Sfn|Cameron|2006}} French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova,{{Sfn|Sen|2006|p=90}} former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit,{{Sfn|Kinzer|2006}} and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies{{efn|Tagore was no stranger to controversy: his dealings with Indian nationalists Subhas Chandra Bose{{Sfn|Sen|1997}} and Rash Behari Bose,{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=214}} his yen for Soviet Communism,{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=297}}{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=214–215}} and papers confiscated from Indian nationalists in New York allegedly implicating Tagore in a plot to overthrow the Raj via German funds.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=212}} These destroyed Tagore's image—and book sales—in the United States.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=214}} His relations with and ambivalent opinion of Mussolini revolted many;{{Sfn|Kundu|2009}} close friend Romain Rolland despaired that "[h]e is abdicating his role as moral guide of the independent spirits of Europe and India".{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=273}}}} involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal.{{Sfn|Sen|1997}} Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|p=255}}
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised ''The Crescent Moon'' and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry".{{Sfn|Dutta|Robinson|1995|pp=254–255}} Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English."{{Sfn|Sen|1997}}{{Sfn|Bhattacharya|2001}} William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?"{{Sfn|Tagore|Radice|2004|p=26}} He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th century."{{Sfn|Bhattacharya|2001}}{{Sfn|Tagore|Radice|2004|pp=26–31}} The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical",{{Sfn|Tagore|Radice|2004|pp=18–19}} and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
{{blockquote|Anyone who knows Tagore's poems in their original Bengali cannot feel satisfied with any of the translations (made with or without Yeats's help). Even the translations of his prose works suffer, to some extent, from distortion. E.M. Forster noted [of] ''The Home and the World'' [that] '[t]he theme is so beautiful,' but the charms have 'vanished in translation,' or perhaps 'in an experiment that has not quite come off.'|2=Amartya Sen|3="Tagore and His India".{{Sfn|Sen|1997}}}}
In October 1961 a blue plaque<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/rabindranath-tagore/ |title=Tagore, Rabindranath (1861-1941) |date=Feb 2020 |website=english-heritage.org.uk |access-date=5 June 2025 |archive-date=10 June 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250610232136/https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/rabindranath-tagore/ |url-status=live }}</ref> to Tagore was unveiled at Number 3, Villas on the Heath in Hampstead, to mark Tagore's visit in 1912 and to mark the centenary of Tagore's birth. The address was Tagore's home for a few months in the summer of 1912, during his third visit to England. The lodgings were found for him by the artist and writer Sir William Rothenstein, who lived nearby at 11 Oak Hill Park.<ref>Goodden, R. Y., and Nevile Wallis. “General Notes.” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 110, no. 5065, 1961, pp. 52–59. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41369146. Accessed 17 May 2025</ref>
In July 2025, a bronze bust of Tagore, sculpted by Ram V. Sutar, was unveiled in Trunk's Close, Edinburgh, opposite a bust of Patrick Geddes who was a friend and collaborator of Tagore.<ref>{{cite web |title=Unveiling of Bronze Bust of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore in Edinburgh |url=https://www.cgiedinburgh.gov.in/section/news/2unveiling-of-bronze-bust-of-gurudev-rabindranath-tagore-in-edinburgh-3-july-2025/ |website=Consulate General of India |access-date=9 July 2025 |language=english |date=3 July 2025}}</ref>
== Museums == [[File:Interior room, Jorasanko Mansion, Kolkata, India.jpg|thumb|upright|Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata; the room in which Tagore died in 1941.]]There are eight Tagore museums, three in India and five in Bangladesh: * Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India * Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh * Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh * Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India * Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India * Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh * Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh * Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: ''House of the Thakurs''; anglicised to ''Tagore'') in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane<ref>{{cite web|title=Rabindra Bharti Museum (Jorasanko Thakurbari) |url=http://kolkata.clickindia.com/tourism/rabindrabhartimuseum.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209125617/http://kolkata.clickindia.com/tourism/rabindrabhartimuseum.html |archive-date=9 February 2012 }}</ref> Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://wikimapia.org/184295/Tagore-House-Jorasanko-Thakurbari|title=Tagore House (Jorasanko Thakurbari) – Kolkata|website=wikimapia.org}}</ref> It is the house in which Tagore was born, and also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
== List of works == {{Main|List of works by Rabindranath Tagore|Adaptations of works of Rabindranath Tagore in film and television}}
{{Quote box | quote = <poem>Who are you, reader, reading my poems a hundred years hence? I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds. Open your doors and look abroad. From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before. In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.</poem> | source = ''The Gardener'', 1915{{Sfn|Tagore|Ray|2007|p=104}} | align = right | width = 20% | fontsize = 85% | quoted = 1 }}
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
=== Original === {| class="wikitable" |+ Original poetry in Bengali |- ! Bengali title !! Transliterated title !! Translated title !! Year |- | ভানুসিংহ ঠাকুরের পদাবলী||''Bhānusiṃha Ṭhākurer Paḍāvalī''||''Songs of Bhānusiṃha Ṭhākur''||1884 |- | মানসী||''Manasi''||''The Ideal One''||1890 |- | সোনার তরী||''Sonar Tari''||''The Golden Boat''||1894 |- | গীতাঞ্জলি||''Gitanjali''||''Song Offerings''||1910 |- | গীতিমাল্য||''Gitimalya''||''Wreath of Songs''||1914 |- | বলাকা||''Balaka''||''The Flight of Cranes''||1916 |} {| class="wikitable" |+ Original dramas in Bengali |- ! Bengali title !! Transliterated title !! Translated title !! Year |- | বাল্মিকী প্রতিভা||''Valmiki-Pratibha''||''The Genius of Valmiki''||1881 |- | কালমৃগয়া||''Kal-Mrigaya''||''The Fatal Hunt''||1882 |- | মায়ার খেলা||''Mayar Khela''||''The Play of Illusions''||1888 |- | বিসর্জন||''Visarjan''||''The Sacrifice''||1890 |- | চিত্রাঙ্গদা||''Chitrangada''||''Chitrangada''||1892 |- | রাজা||''Raja''||''The King of the Dark Chamber''||1910 |- | ডাকঘর||''Dak Ghar''||''The Post Office''||1912 |- | অচলায়তন||''Achalayatan''||''The Immovable''||1912 |- | মুক্তধারা||''Muktadhara''||''The Waterfall''||1922 |- | রক্তকরবী||''Raktakarabi''||''Red Oleanders''||1926 |- | চণ্ডালিকা||''Chandalika''||''The Untouchable Girl''||1933 |} {| class="wikitable" |+ Original fiction in Bengali |- ! Bengali title !! Transliterated title !! Translated title !! Year |- | নষ্টনীড়||''Nastanirh''||''The Broken Nest''||1901 |- | গোরা||''Gora''||''Fair-Faced''||1910 |- | ঘরে বাইরে||''Ghare Baire''||''The Home and the World''||1916 |- | যোগাযোগ||''Yogayog''||''Crosscurrents''||1929 |} {| class="wikitable" |+ Original nonfiction in Bengali |- ! Bengali title !! Transliterated title !! Translated title !! Year |- | [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E0%A6%9C%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%A8-%E0%A6%B8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AE%E0%A7%83%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BF_-_%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%AC%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A5_%E0%A6%A0%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%B0.pdf জীবনস্মৃতি]||''Jivansmriti''||''My Reminiscences''||1912 |- | ছেলেবেলা||''Chhelebela''||''My Boyhood Days''||1940 |} {| class="wikitable" |+ Works in English |- ! Title !! Year |- | ''Thought Relics'' | 1921<ref group=original>{{Citation|title=Thought Relics|publisher=Internet Sacred Text Archive|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tagore/tr/tr01.htm|access-date=15 October 2006|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303185523/http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tagore/tr/tr01.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> |}
=== Translated === {| class="wikitable sortable" |+ English translations |- ! Year ! Work |- |1914 | ''Chitra''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=2502|name=Chitra}}</ref> |- |1922 |''Creative Unity''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=23136|name=Creative Unity}}</ref> |- |1913 |''The Crescent Moon''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6520|name=The Crescent Moon}}</ref> |- |1917 | ''The Cycle of Spring''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=24607|name=The Cycle of Spring}}</ref> |- |1928 |''Fireflies'' |- |1916 |''Fruit-Gathering''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6522|name=Fruit-Gathering}}</ref> |- |1916 |''The Fugitive''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=7971|name=The Fugitive}}</ref> |- |1913 |''The Gardener''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6686|name=The Gardener}}</ref> |- |1912 |''Gitanjali: Song Offerings''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=7164|name=Gitanjali}}</ref> |- |1920 |''Glimpses of Bengal''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=7951|name=Glimpses of Bengal}}</ref> |- |1921 |''The Home and the World''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=7166|name=The Home and the World}}</ref> |- |1916 |''The Hungry Stones''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=2518|name=The Hungry Stones}}</ref> |- |1991 |''I Won't Let you Go: Selected Poems'' |- |1914 |''The King of the Dark Chamber''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6521|name=The King of the Dark Chamber}}</ref> |- |2012 |''Letters from an Expatriate in Europe'' |- |2003 |''The Lover of God'' |- |1918 |''Mashi''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=34757|name=Mashi}}</ref> |- |1928 |''My Boyhood Days'' |- |1917 |''My Reminiscences''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=22217|name=My Reminiscences}}</ref> |- |1917 |''Nationalism'' |- |1914 |''The Post Office''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6523|name=The Post Office}}</ref> |- |1913 |''Sadhana: The Realisation of Life''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6842|name=Sadhana: The Realisation of Life}}</ref> |- |1997 |''Selected Letters'' |- |1994 |''Selected Poems'' |- |1991 |''Selected Short Stories'' |- |1915 |''Songs of Kabir''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6519|name=Songs of Kabir}}</ref> |- |1916 |''The Spirit of Japan''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=33131|name=The Spirit of Japan}}</ref> |- |1918 |''Stories from Tagore''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=33525|name=Stories from Tagore}}</ref> |- |1916 |''Stray Birds''<ref group=text>{{Gutenberg|bullet=none|no=6524|name=Stray Birds}}</ref> |- |1913 |''Vocation''<ref name="Vocation">{{Citation|title=Vocation|year=2007|publisher=Ratna Sagar|page=64|isbn=978-81-8332-175-4}}</ref> |- |1921 |''The Wreck'' |}
== In popular culture == * ''Rabindranath Tagore'' is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2018-02-04 |title=How Satyajit Ray made one of the greatest documentaries on the life and work of Rabindranath Tagore |url=https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/how-satyajit-ray-made-one-of-the-greatest-documentaries-on-the-life-and-work-of-rabindranath-tagore-4334561.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240805052027/https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/how-satyajit-ray-made-one-of-the-greatest-documentaries-on-the-life-and-work-of-rabindranath-tagore-4334561.html |archive-date=2024-08-05 |access-date=2025-10-21 |work=Firstpost |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray Org |url=https://satyajitray.org/rabindranath-tagore/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251005133940/https://satyajitray.org/rabindranath-tagore/ |archive-date=5 Oct 2025 |access-date=2025-10-21 |language=en-US}}</ref> * Serbian composer Darinka Simic-Mitrovic used Tagore's text for her song cycle ''Gradinar'' in 1962.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Aaron I. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5VsYAAAAIAAJ&q=strantz+louise |title=International Encyclopedia of Women Composers |date=1987 |publisher=Books & Music (US) |isbn=978-0-9617485-2-4}}</ref> * In 1969, American composer E. Anne Schwerdtfeger was commissioned to compose ''Two Pieces'', a work for women's chorus based on text by Tagore.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heinrich |first=Adel |title=Organ and harpsichord music by women composers : an annotated catalog |date=1991 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-38790-6 |location=New York |oclc=650307517}}</ref> * In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film ''Chhelebela'' (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.rediff.com/movies/2000/apr/26tagore.htm |title=Chhelebela will capture the poet's childhood |work=Rediff.com |access-date=12 April 2020 |archive-date=6 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170506073508/http://www.rediff.com/movies/2000/apr/26tagore.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> * In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film ''Chirosakha He'' (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Tagore-or-touch-him-not-/articleshow/2198707.cms|title=Tagore or touch-him-not|website=The Times of India|date=13 July 2007 |access-date=12 April 2020}}</ref> * In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film ''Jeevan Smriti'' (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20130807/282346857440878 |title=Celebrating Tagore |date=7 August 2013 |work=The Hindu |access-date=12 April 2020 |archive-date=6 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806143104/https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20130807/282346857440878 |url-status=live }}</ref> * In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film ''Kadambari'' (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.<ref>{{cite news | newspaper=The Times of India | url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news/Kadambari-explores-Tagore-and-his-sis-in-laws-relationship-responsibly/articleshow/47146128.cms | title=Kadambari explores Tagore and his sis-in-law's relationship responsibly | date=12 January 2017 | first=Kathakali | last=Banerjee | access-date=12 April 2020 }}</ref>
== See also == * Rabindra Jayanti * Works of Rabindranath Tagore * List of works by Rabindranath Tagore * List of things named after Rabindranath Tagore * Adaptations of works of Rabindranath Tagore in film and television * Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore * Tagore family * Kazi Nazrul Islam * Rabindra Puraskar * ''An Artist in Life'' – biography by Niharranjan Ray * Taptapadi * Music of Bengal * List of Indian writers
== References == {{Multiple image | align = right | caption_align = center | direction = horizontal | image1 = Rabindranath Tagore monument inscription in Gordon Square.jpg | caption1 = Gordon Square, London | width1 = 100 | image2 = Tagore on Gandhi.jpg | caption2 = Gandhi Memorial Museum, Madurai | width2 = 100 }}
'''Notes''' {{notelist}} '''Citations''' {{Reflist}}
== Bibliography ==
=== Primary === '''Anthologies''' {{Refbegin}} * {{Citation|last=Tagore |first=Rabindranath|publication-date=January 1952|year=1952|title=Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore|publisher=Macmillan Publishing|isbn=978-0-02-615920-3<!--0026159201-->}} * {{Citation|last=Tagore |first=Rabindranath|publication-date=1984|year=1984|title=Some Songs and Poems from Rabindranath Tagore|publisher=East-West Publications|isbn=978-0-85692-055-4<!--085692055X-->}} * {{Citation|last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath|editor1-last=Alam|editor1-first=F<!--akrul-->. |editor2-last=Chakravarty|editor2-first=R<!--adha-->.|publication-date=15 April 2011|year=2011|title=The Essential Tagore|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=323|isbn=978-0-674-05790-6<!--0674057902-->}} * {{Citation|last=Tagore |first=Rabindranath |editor-last=Chakravarty |editor-first=A<!--miya-->. |publication-date=1 June 1961|year=1961|title=A Tagore Reader|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=978-0-8070-5971-5<!--0807059714--> |ref={{harvid|Tagore|Chakravarty|1961}} }} * {{Citation|last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath|editor1-last=Dutta|editor1-first=K<!--rishna-->. |editor2-last=Robinson|editor2-first=A<!--ndrew-->. |editor2-link=W. Andrew Robinson|publication-date=28 June 1997|year=1997a|title=Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-59018-1<!--0521590183-->}} * {{Citation|last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath|editor1-last=Dutta|editor1-first=K<!--rishna-->. |editor2-last=Robinson|editor2-first=A<!--ndrew-->. |editor2-link=W. Andrew Robinson|publication-date=November 1997|year=1997b|title=Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology|publisher=Saint Martin's Press|isbn=978-0-312-16973-2<!--0312169736-->}} * {{Citation|last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath|editor1-last=Ray|editor1-first=M<!--ohit-->. K.|publication-date=10 June 2007|year=2007|title=The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore|publisher=Atlantic Publishing|volume=1|isbn=978-81-269-0664-2<!--8126906642-->|ref={{harvid|Tagore|Ray|2007}}}} {{Refend}} '''Originals''' {{Refbegin}} * {{Citation |last=Tagore |first=Rabindranath |publication-date=1916 |year=1916 |title=Sādhanā: The Realisation of Life |publisher=Macmillan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ADftQVyteYC<!--|access-date=10 September 2011-->}} * {{Citation |last=Tagore |first=Rabindranath |publication-date=1930 |year=1930 |title=The Religion of Man |publisher=Macmillan |title-link=The Religion of Man}} {{Refend}} '''Translations''' {{Refbegin}} * {{Citation |last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath |translator-last=Mukerjea |translator-first=D<!--evabrata-->. |publication-date=1914 |year=1914 |title=The Post Office |publisher=Macmillan |location=London}} * {{Citation |last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath |translator-last=Pal |translator-first=P<!--alash-->. B<!--aran-->. |title=The Parrot's Tale |periodical=Parabaas |publication-date=1 December 2004 |year=2004 |url=http://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/gRabindranath_parrot.html |ref={{harvid|Tagore|Pal|2004}}<!--|access-date=29 September 2011--><!--|quote=The King felt the bird. It didn't open its mouth and didn't utter a word. Only the pages of books, stuffed inside its stomach, raised a ruffling sound.--> |access-date=2 April 2006 |archive-date=16 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090516005558/http://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations/stories/gRabindranath_parrot.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath |translator-last=Radice |translator-first=W<!--illiam-->. |translator-link=William Radice |publication-date=1 June 1995 |year=1995 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: Selected Poems |edition=1st |publisher=Penguin |location=London |isbn=978-0-14-018366-5<!--0140183663--> |ref={{harvid|Tagore|Radice|1995}}}} * {{Citation |last1=Tagore |first1=Rabindranath |translator-last=Radice |translator-first=W<!--illiam--> |translator-link=William Radice |publication-date=28 December 2004 |year=2004 |title=Particles, Jottings, Sparks: The Collected Brief Poems |publisher=Angel Books |isbn=978-0-946162-66-6<!--0946162662--> |ref={{harvid|Tagore|Radice|2004}}}} * {{Citation |last=Tagore |first=Rabindranath |translator-last1=Stewart |translator-first1=T<!--ony-->. K. |translator-last2=Twichell |translator-first2=C<!--hase-->. |publication-date=1 November 2003 |year=2003 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: Lover of God |series=Lannan Literary Selections |url=https://archive.org/details/loverofgod00rabi |url-access=registration |publisher=Copper Canyon Press |isbn=978-1-55659-196-9<!--1556591969--> |ref={{harvid|Tagore|Stewart|Twichell|2003}}}} {{Refend}}
=== Secondary === '''Articles''' {{refbegin|30em}} * {{Citation |last=Bhattacharya |first=S<!--abyasachi-->. |publication-date=2 September 2001 |year=2001 |title=Translating Tagore |newspaper=The Hindu |url=http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2001/09/02/stories/1302017r.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031101144150/http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2001/09/02/stories/1302017r.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 November 2003 |access-date=9 September 2011 |location=Chennai, India}} * {{Citation |last=Brown |first=G<!--iles-->. T. |title=The Hindu Conspiracy: 1914–1917 |publication-date=August 1948 |year=1948 |publisher=University of California Press |journal=The Pacific Historical Review |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=299–310 |issn=0030-8684 |doi=10.2307/3634258 |jstor=3634258}} * {{Citation |last=Cameron |first=R<!--ob-->. |publication-date=31 March 2006 |year=2006 |title=Exhibition of Bengali Film Posters Opens in Prague |periodical=Radio Prague |url=http://www.radio.cz/en/article/77431 |access-date=29 September 2011<!--|quote=Lesny was the first European person to translate Rabindranath Tagore from the original into a European language, the first European or westerner ever.--> |archive-date=28 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090228054136/http://www.radio.cz/en/article/77431 |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Chakrabarti |first=I<!--ndrani-->. |publication-date=15 July 2001 |year=2001 |title=A People's Poet or a Literary Deity? |periodical=Parabaas |url=https://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pIndrani1.html |access-date=17 September 2011 |archive-date=2 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090802151038/http://parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pIndrani1.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Das |first=S<!--oumitra-->. |publication-date=2 August 2009 |year=2009 |title=Tagore's Garden of Eden |url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/tagore-s-garden-of-eden/cid/1266893 |access-date=29 September 2011<!-- |quote=the garden in Panihati where the child Rabindranath along with his family had sought refuge for some time during a dengue epidemic. That was the first time that the 12-year-old poet had ever left his Chitpur home to come face-to-face with nature and greenery in a Bengal village.--> |location=Calcutta, India |work=The Telegraph}} * {{Citation |last=Dasgupta |first=A<!--nirban-->. |publication-date=15 July 2001 |year=2001 |title=Rabindra-Sangeet as a Resource for Indian Classical ''Bandishes'' |periodical=Parabaas |url=http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pAnirban1.html |access-date=17 September 2011 |archive-date=18 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110818064807/http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pAnirban1.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Dyson |first=K<!--etaki-->. K<!--ushari-->. |title=Rabindranath Tagore and His World of Colours |publication-date=15 July 2001 |year=2001 |periodical=Parabaas |url=http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pKetaki2.html |access-date=26 November 2009 |archive-date=22 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822050007/http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pKetaki2.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Ghosh |first=B<!--haswati-->. |title=Inside the World of Tagore's Music |periodical=Parabaas |publication-date=August 2011 |year=2011 |url=https://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pBhaswati2.html |access-date=17 September 2011}} * {{Citation |last=Harvey |first=J<!--onathan-->. |author-link=Jonathan Harvey (composer) |publication-date=1999 |year=1999 |title=In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music |publisher=University of California Press<!--|quote=Works published after 1977--> |url=http://www.vivosvoco.com/listofworks.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010506112222/http://www.vivosvoco.com/listofworks.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=6 May 2001 |access-date=10 September 2011}} * {{Citation |last=Hatcher |first=B<!--rian-->. A. |publication-date=15 July 2001 |year=2001 |title=''Aji Hote Satabarsha Pare'': What Tagore Says to Us a Century Later |periodical=Parabaas |url=https://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pBrian1.html |access-date=28 September 2011 |archive-date=2 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090802151028/http://parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pBrian1.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Hjärne |first=H<!--arald-->. |publication-date=10 December 1913 |year=1913 |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913: Rabindranath Tagore—Award Ceremony Speech |publisher=Nobel Foundation |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/press.html |access-date=17 September 2011<!--|quote=Tagore's ''Gitanjali: Song Offerings'' (1912), a collection of religious poems, was the one of his works that especially arrested the attention of the selecting critics.--> |archive-date=23 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090723004220/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/press.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Jha |first=N<!--armadeshwar-->. |publication-date=1994 |year=1994 |title=Rabindranath Tagore |journal=PROSPECTS: The Quarterly Review of Education |volume=24<!--XXIV--> |issue=3/4 |pages=603–19 |publisher=UNESCO: International Bureau of Education |location=Paris |url=http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/tagoree.PDF |access-date=30 August 2011 |doi=10.1007/BF02195291 |s2cid=144526531 |archive-date=10 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111110033655/http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/tagoree.PDF |url-status=dead}} * {{Citation |last=Kämpchen |first=M<!--artin-->. |publication-date=25 July 2003 |year=2003 |title=Rabindranath Tagore in Germany |periodical=Parabaas |url=http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pMartin1.html |access-date=28 September 2011 |archive-date=27 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927053648/http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pMartin1.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Kinzer |first=S<!--tephen-->. |publication-date=5 November 2006 |year=2006 |title=Bülent Ecevit, Who Turned Turkey Toward the West, Dies |periodical=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/world/europe/06iht-web.1106ecevit.3406951.html |access-date=28 September 2011<!--|quote=He published several volumes of poetry and translated the works of T. S. Eliot and Rabindranath Tagore.--> |archive-date=1 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170701080814/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/world/europe/06iht-web.1106ecevit.3406951.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Kundu |first=K<!--alyan-->. |publication-date=7 May 2009 |year=2009 |title=Mussolini and Tagore |periodical=Parabaas |url=http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pKalyan.html |access-date=17 September 2011 |archive-date=6 December 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091206233638/http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pKalyan.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Mehta |first=S<!--uketu-->. |author-link=Suketu Mehta |title=The First Asian Nobel Laureate |magazine=Time |publication-date=23 August 1999 |year=1999 |url=http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/tagore1.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010210221336/http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/tagore1.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=10 February 2001 |access-date=30 August 2011}} * {{Citation |last=Meyer |first=L<!--iesbeth-->. |publication-date=15 July 2004 |year=2004 |title=Tagore in The Netherlands |periodical=Parabaas |url=http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pMeyer.html |access-date=30 August 2011 |archive-date=7 December 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091207160555/http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pMeyer.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Mukherjee |first=M<!--eenakshi-->. |publication-date=25 March 2004 |year=2004 |title=''Yogayog'' ("Nexus") by Rabindranath Tagore: A Book Review |periodical=Parabaas |url=https://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/brMeenakshi.html |access-date=29 September 2011 |archive-date=9 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110909060026/http://parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/brMeenakshi.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Pandey |first=J<!--himli-->. M<!--ukherjee-->. |publication-date=8 August 2011 |year=2011 |title=Original Rabindranath Tagore Scripts in Print Soon |work=The Times of India |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Original-Rabindranath-Tagore-scripts-in-print-soon-/articleshow/9521586.cms |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120924125138/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-08-08/india/29864127_1_tagore-work-maharshi-debendranath-tagore-first |url-status=live |archive-date=24 September 2012 |access-date=1 September 2011}} * {{Citation |last=O'Connell |first=K<!--athleen-->. M. |publication-date=December 2008 |year=2008 |title=''Red Oleanders'' (''Raktakarabi'') by Rabindranath Tagore—A New Translation and Adaptation: Two Reviews |periodical=Parabaas |url=https://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/brRedOleanders.html |access-date=28 September 2011 |archive-date=15 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215211147/http://parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/brRedOleanders.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Radice |first=W<!--illiam-->. |author-link=William Radice |publication-date=7 May 2003 |year=2003 |title=Tagore's Poetic Greatness |periodical=Parabaas |url=http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pRadice.html |access-date=30 August 2011 |archive-date=9 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091109110535/http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pRadice.html |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Sen |first=A<!--martya-->. |author-link=Amartya Sen |publication-date=1997 |year=1997 |title=Tagore and His India |periodical=The New York Review of Books |url=http://www.countercurrents.org/culture-sen281003.htm |access-date=30 August 2011 |archive-date=10 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810064811/http://www.countercurrents.org/culture-sen281003.htm |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |last=Sil |first=N<!--arasingha-->. P. |publication-date=15 February 2005 |year=2005 |title=''Devotio Humana'': Rabindranath's Love Poems Revisited |periodical=Parabaas |url=http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pNarasingha.html |access-date=13 August 2009 |archive-date=28 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090728012628/http://www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pNarasingha.html |url-status=live}} {{Refend}}
'''Books''' {{refbegin|30em}} * {{cite book |title=An Artist in Life |author-link1=Niharranjan Ray |last1=Ray |first1=Niharranjan |year=1967 |publisher=University of Kerala}} * {{Citation |last=Ayyub |first=A<!--bu-->. S<!--ayeed-->. |publication-date=1980 |year=1980 |title=Tagore's Quest |publisher=Papyrus}} * {{Citation |last1=Chakraborty |first1=S. K. |last2=Bhattacharya |first2=P<!--radip-->. |publication-date=16 August 2001 |year=2001 |title=Leadership and Power: Ethical Explorations |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-565591-9<!--0195655915-->}} * {{Citation |last=Dasgupta |first=T<!--apati-->. |publication-date=1 October 1993 |year=1993 |title=Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis |publisher=Abhinav Publications |isbn=978-81-7017-302-1<!--8170173027-->}} * {{Citation |last=Datta |first=P<!--radip-->. K<!--umar-->. |publication-date=1 December 2002 |year=2002 |title=Rabindranath Tagore's ''The Home and the World'': A Critical Companion |edition=1st |publisher=Permanent Black<!--Orient Longman--> |isbn=978-81-7824-046-6<!--8178240467-->}} * {{Citation |last1=Dutta |first1=K<!--rishna-->. |last2=Robinson |first2=A<!--ndrew-->. |author2-link=W. Andrew Robinson |publication-date=December 1995 |year=1995 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man |publisher=Saint Martin's Press |isbn=978-0-312-14030-4<!--0312140304-->}} * {{Citation |last=Farrell |first=G<!--erry-->. |publication-date=9 March 2000 |year=2000 |title=Indian Music and the West |edition=3 |series=Clarendon Paperbacks Series |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-816717-4<!--0198167172-->}} * {{Citation |last=Hogan |first=P<!--atrick-->. C<!--olm-->. |title=Colonialism and Cultural Identity: Crises of Tradition in the Anglophone Literatures of India, Africa, and the Caribbean |publisher=State University of New York Press |publication-date=27 January 2000 |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-7914-4460-3<!--0791444600-->}} * {{Citation |last1=Hogan |first1=P<!--atrick-->. C<!--olm-->. |last2=Pandit |first2=L<!--alita-->. |title=Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |publication-date=May 2003 |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8386-3980-1<!--0838639801-->}} * {{Citation |last=Kripalani |first=K<!--rishna-->. |publication-date=2005 |year=2005 |title=Dwarkanath Tagore: A Forgotten Pioneer—A Life |publisher=National Book Trust of India |isbn=978-81-237-3488-0<!--8123734883--> |ref={{Sfnref|Kripalani|2005a}}}} * {{Citation |last=Kripalani |first=K<!--rishna-->. |publication-date=2005 |year=2005 |title=Tagore—A Life |publisher=National Book Trust of India |isbn=978-81-237-1959-7<!--8123719590--> |ref={{Sfnref|Kripalani|2005b}}}} * {{Citation |last=Lago |first=M<!--ary-->. |publication-date=April 1977 |year=1977 |title=Rabindranath Tagore |publisher=Twayne Publishers |location=Boston |isbn=978-0-8057-6242-6<!--0805762426-->}} * {{Citation |last1=Lifton |first1=B<!--etty-->. J<!--ean-->. |last2=Wiesel |first2=E<!--lie-->. |author2-link=Elie Wiesel |publication-date=15 April 1997 |year=1997 |title=The King of Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak |publisher=St. Martin's Griffin |isbn=978-0-312-15560-5<!--0312155603-->}} * {{Citation |last1=Prasad |first1=A<!--mar-->. N<!--ath-->. |last2=Sarkar |first2=B<!--ithika-->. |publication-date=2008 |year=2008 |title=Critical Response To Indian Poetry in English |publisher=Sarup and Sons |isbn=978-81-7625-825-8<!--8176258253-->}} * {{Citation |last=Ray |first=M<!--ohit-->. K<!--umar-->. |publication-date=1 October 2007 |year=2007 |title=Studies on Rabindranath Tagore |volume=1 |publisher=Atlantic |isbn=978-81-269-0308-5<!--8126903082--> |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hptK6GTo43QC |access-date=16 September 2011}} * {{Citation |last=Roy |first=B<!--asanta-->. K<!--oomar-->. |publication-date=1977 |year=1977 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: The Man and His Poetry |publisher=Folcroft Library Editions |isbn=978-0-8414-7330-0<!--0841473307-->}} * {{Citation |last=Scott |first=J<!--ohn-->. |title=Bengali Flower: 50 Selected Poems from India and Bangladesh |publication-date=4 July 2009 |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4486-3931-1<!--144863931X--><!--|quote=In 1890 Tagore wrote Manast, a collection of poems that contains some of his best known poetry. The book has innovations in Bengali forms of poetry, as well as Tagore's first social and political poems. He published several books of poetry while in his 20s.-->}} * {{Citation |last=Sen |first=A<!--martya-->. |author-link=Amartya Sen |publication-date=5 September 2006 |year=2006 |title=The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity |edition=1st |publisher=Picador |isbn=978-0-312-42602-6<!--031242602X-->}} * {{Citation |last=Sigi |first=R<!--ekha-->. |title=Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore—A Biography |publisher=Diamond Books |publication-date=1 October 2006 |year=2006 |isbn=978-81-89182-90-8<!--8189182900-->}} * {{Citation |last=Sinha |first=S<!--atya-->. |title=The Dialectic of God: The Theosophical Views of Tagore and Gandhi |year=2015 |publisher=Partridge Publishing India |isbn=978-1-4828-4748-2}} * {{Citation |last=Som |first=R<!--eba-->. |author-link=Reba Som |publication-date=26 May 2010 |year=2010 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: The Singer and His Song |publisher=Viking |isbn=978-0-670-08248-3<!--0670082481--> |ol=23720201M}} * {{Citation |last=Thompson<!--, Jr.--> |first=E<!--dward-->. |publication-date=1926 |year=1926 |title=Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist |publisher=Pierides Press |isbn=978-1-4067-8927-0<!--1406789275-->}} * {{Citation |last=Urban |first=H<!--ugh-->. B. |publication-date=22 November 2001 |year=2001 |title=Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Colonial Bengal |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-513901-3<!--0195139011-->}} {{Refend}} '''Other''' {{refbegin|30em}} * {{Citation |publication-date=7 August 2009 |year=2009 |title=68th Death Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore |periodical=The Daily Star |location=Dhaka |url=http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=100259 |access-date=29 September 2011 |ref={{Sfnref|The Daily Star|2009}} |archive-date=7 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110907205316/http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=100259 |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |publication-date=2005 |year=2005 |title=Recitation of Tagore's Poetry of Death |periodical=Hindustan Times |ref={{Sfnref|Indo-Asian News Service|2005}}}} * {{Citation |publication-date=28 April 2011 |year=2011 |title=Archeologists Track Down Tagore's Ancestral Home in Khulna |work=The News Today |url=http://www.newstoday.com.bd/index.php?option=details&news_id=26140&date=2011-04-29 |access-date=9 September 2011<!--|quote=Archeologists [...] tracked down the ancestral home of [...] Tagore [in] a daylong initial experimental excavation on the ancestral house of the great poet at Pithabhog village under Rupsha Upazila of Khulna [...] Archeologists believe the ancestral house of the poet was owned by Jagannath Kushari, the fourteenth forefather of the great poet who was also a Jaminder of the area.--> |ref={{Sfnref|The News Today|2011}} |archive-date=28 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120328092526/http://www.newstoday.com.bd/index.php?option=details&news_id=26140&date=2011-04-29 |url-status=dead}} * {{Citation |title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 |publisher=The Nobel Foundation |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/ |access-date=14 August 2009 |ref={{Sfnref|The Nobel Foundation}} |archive-date=8 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110808214602/http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/ |url-status=live}} * {{Citation |title=History of the Tagore Festival |publisher=Tagore Festival Committee |location=University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |url=http://tagore.business.uiuc.edu/history.html |access-date=29 November 2009 |ref={{Sfnref|University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign}} |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150613225155/http://tagore.business.uiuc.edu/history.html |archive-date=13 June 2015 |url-status=dead}} {{Refend}}
=== Texts === '''Original''' {{reflist|group=original|liststyle=disc}} '''Translated''' {{reflist|group=text|liststyle=disc}}
== Further reading == {{Refbegin}} * {{Cite book |editor1-last=Abu Zakaria |editor1-first=G<!--olam-->. |publication-date=2011 |year=2011 |title=Rabindranath Tagore—Wanderer zwischen Welten |publisher=Klemm and Oelschläger |isbn=978-3-86281-018-5 |url=http://www.klemm-oelschlaeger.de/product_info.php?products_id=102<!--|access-date=7 September 2011--> |access-date=15 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120328162246/http://www.klemm-oelschlaeger.de/product_info.php?products_id=102 |archive-date=28 March 2012 |url-status=dead}} * {{cite book |last1=Bhattacharya |first1=Sabyasachi |title=Rabindranath Tagore: an interpretation |date=2011 |publisher=Viking, Penguin Books India |location=New Delhi |isbn=978-0-670-08455-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYpkWGHGkwYC}} * {{Cite book |editor1-last=Chaudhuri |editor1-first=A<!--mit-->. |publication-date=9 November 2004 |year=2004 |title=The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature |edition=1st |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-375-71300-2<!--037571300X-->}} * {{Cite book |editor1-last=Deutsch |editor1-first=A<!--ndré-->. |editor2-last=Robinson |editor2-first=A<!--ndrew-->. |editor1-link=André Deutsch |editor2-link=W. Andrew Robinson |publication-date=August 1989 |year=1989 |title=The Art of Rabindranath Tagore |edition=1st |publisher=Monthly Review Press |isbn=978-0-233-98359-2<!--0233983597-->}} * {{cite book |last=Shamsud Doulah |first=A. B. M. |title=Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and the British Raj: Some Untold Stories |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6-xCwAAQBAJ |year=2016 |publisher=Partridge Publishing Singapore |isbn=978-1-4828-6403-8}} * {{cite book |last=Shamsud Doulah |first=A. B. M. |title=Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, and the British Raj: Some Untold Stories |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6-xCwAAQBAJ |year=2016 |publisher=Partridge Publishing Singapore |isbn=978-1-4828-6403-8}} * {{Cite book |last=Sinha |first=Satya |title=The Dialectic of God: The Theosophical Views of Tagore and Gandhi |date=2015 |publisher=Partridge Publishing India |isbn=978-1-4828-4748-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qTU_CQAAQBAJ}} {{Refend}}
== External links == {{sister project links|d=Q7241|mw=no|species=no|voy=no|n=no|m=no|wikt=no|s=Author:Rabindranath Tagore|b=no}} {{Library resources box|by=yes||onlinebooks=yes|viaf=24608356}} * {{Britannica|580333}} * {{IMDb name}} * [https://schoolofwisdom.com/about/rabindranath-tagore-one-of-the-school-of-wisdoms-most-notable-teachers/ School of Wisdom] * {{PM20|FID=pe/017375}} '''Analyses''' * [https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2013/04/rabindranath-tagore/ Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore"], ''The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913 * [https://library.missouri.edu/specialcollections/collections/show/36 ''Mary Lago Collection''], University of Missouri '''Audiobooks''' * {{Librivox author |id=568}}
'''Texts''' * {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/rabindranath-tagore}} * [https://bichitra.jdvu.ac.in/index.php Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum] * {{Gutenberg author | id=942| name=Rabindranath Tagore}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Rabindranath Tagore}}
'''Talks''' * [http://www.saadigitalarchive.org/entity/rabindranath-tagore South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)]
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