Selected Writings on Literature and Language

by Rabindranath Tagore, Sisir Kumar Das (Introduction), Sukanta Chaudhuri (Editor)

This collection presents new translations of Tagore's provocative critical writings, cornerstones of modern Bengali criticism. The essays span his entire career and invoke his lifelong engagement with the central issues of criticism as well as literary theory and aesthetics.

432 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 2001

About the author

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

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

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

Reviews

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never knew Tagore was a humorist until I read the serious shade he threw at modernist poets.