INTRODUCTION

Rabindranath Tagore born May 7, 1861 Calcutta, India. His father was
maharishi Debendranath Tagore, a religious reformer and scholar, his mother
Sarada Devi, died when he was very young. His real name was Rabindranath
Thakur. He wrote his first poem when he was only eight year old.
He received his early education first from tutors and then at a variety of
school.
Among them were Bengal Academy where he studied Bengali history and
culture, and University College, London, where the studied law but left after
a year without completing his studies.
Tagores reputation as a writer was established in the United States and in
England after the publication of Gitanjali: Song Offerings, in which Tagore
tried to find inner calm and explored the themes of divine and human life.
Between the years 1916 and 1934 he travelled widely, attempting to spread
the ideal of uniting East and West.
Clouds come floating into my life,
No longer to carry rain or usher storm,
But to add color to my sunset sky.
-Rabindranath Tagore

FAME AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION:-

In 1890, while on a visit to his ancestral estate in Shelaidaha, his collection

of poems, Manasi, was released. The period between 1891 and 1895
proved to be fruitful during which, he authored a massive three volume
collection of short stories, Galpaguchchha.
His popularity in English speaking nations grew manifold after the
publication of Gitanjali:
From May 1916 to April 1917, he stayed in Japan and the U.S. where he
delivered lectures on Nationalism and on Personality.
In 1920s and 1930s, he travelled extensively around the world; visiting Latin
America, Europe and South-East Asia. During his extensive tours, he earned
a cult following and endless admirers.
If you cry because the
Sun has gone out of your life,
Your tears will prevent you from
Seeing the stars.
-Rabindranath Tagore

POETICAL OPINION:
Tagores political outlook was a little ambiguous. He criticized Swadeshi
Movement by Mahatma Gandhi in his essay "The Cult of the Charka",
published in September 1925. He believed in the co-existence of the British
and the Indians and stated that British rule in India was "political symptom
of our social disease".

On the whole, his vision of a free India was based not on its independence
from the foreign rule, but on the liberty of thought, action and conscience of
its citizens.
You cant Cross the
Sea merely by standing and
Staring the water
-Rabindranath Tagore

THEMES OF HIS WORKS:

Though he is more famous as a poet, Tagore was an equally good short-story
writer, lyricist, novelist, playwright, essayist, and painter.
His poems, stories, songs and novels provided an insight into the society
which was rife with religious and social tenets and was infested with illpractices such as child marriage.
He observed life and society around him, weighed down by rigid customs
and norms and plagued by orthodoxy.
Loves gift cannot be
Given, it waits to be
Accepted
-Rabindranath Tagore

MAJOR WORKS:
Gitanjali, a collection of poems, is considered his best poetic
accomplishment. It is written in traditional Bengali dialect and consists of
157 poems based on themes pertaining to nature, spirituality and intricacy of
emotions and pathos.
He also wrote the national anthem for India - Jana Gana Mana- and for
Bangladesh - Aamaar Sonaar Banglaa.
Galpagucchaccha

a collection of eighty stories is his most famous short

story collection which revolves around the lives of rural folks of Bengal.

AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS:

For his momentous and revolutionary literary works, Tagore was honored
with the Nobel Prize in Literature on 14 November 1913.
He was also conferred knighthood in 1915, which he renounced in 1919
after the Jallianwallah Bagh carnage.
In 1940, Oxford University awarded him with a Doctorate of Literature in a
special ceremony arranged at Shantiniketan.
The Human Soul
Is on its journey
From the law to
Love, from
Discipline to liberation, from
The moral plane
to the spiritual.

Where the mind is without fear and

the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken
up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the
depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its
arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has
not lost its way Into the dreary desert
sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom,
my Father, let my country awake.!!
These are the lines by Rabindranath Tagore, a world renowned poet, writer
and philosopher from India. Tagore has been, and remains, an altogether
exceptional literary figure, towering over all others. His poems, songs,

novels, short stories, critical essays, and other writings have vastly enriched
the cultural environment in which hundreds of millions of people live. The
glory is acknowledged not only in India but also outside as in Bangladesh,
parts of Asia, Europe and America, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1913 for his remarkable. Gitanjali, a selection of his poems. It
was published in English translation in London in March 1913 and was
reprinted ten times by the time the award was announced.

VERSE OF GITANJALI
My song has put off her adornments.
She has no pride of dress and decoration.
Ornaments would mar our union;
they would come between thee and me;
their jingling would drown thy whispers.
My poets vanity dies in shame before thy sight.
O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet.
Only let me make my life simple and straight,
like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.

Tagore is the only person to have written anthems for three countries.
One of the works of Tagore included Jana Gana Mana the national anthem of
India
Amar Shonar Bangla, the national anthem of Bangladesh.
Tagore works display philosophies of life. Through his writhing, he covered
every aspect of life-love, friendship, courage, challenges, difficulties, education,
everything.

Tagore saw the world as a vast give- and- take of ideas and innovations.
Tagore's poetry is very varied, and covers many styles. He drew inspiration from
15th - 16th century poets, as also from ancient writers like Vyasa. Bengals Baul
folk singers also influenced his style of poetry. Many poems have a lyrical
quality. These poems tell about the "man within the heart" and the "living God
within" he wrote many experimental works of poetry, and also used modernism
and realism in his works.
"all I had achieved was carried off
on the golden boat;
only I was left behind.".

A
CRITICAL STUDY OF GITANJALI
SYNOPSIS
SUBMITTED IN THE PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COMPLETION OF THE ADVANCED
PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION COURSE

In
English
Supervisor:
MD. TARIQ FARAZ
PAsst. Professor
Department of Language (English)
Integral University, Lucknow

Supplicant
Department of Language (English)
Integral University, Lucknow

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE (ENGLISH)

INTEGRAL UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW

MARCH 2016

GROUP MEMBERS
RUBY TIWARI
SANA IQBAL
SHOMAUYAL AISHA
FARAH REZA
MARIYAM SHAIKH

SUBMITTED TO:
MD. TARIQ FARAZ

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gitanjali (Song Offerings) / with an Introduction by W. B. Yeats. London,
1913
The Crescent Moon : Child-Poems. London : Macmillan, 1913
Chitra : a Play in One Act. London : Macmillan, 1914
The Post Office : a Play / translated by Devabrata Mukerjea. London :
Macmillan, 1914
Fruit-Gathering. London : Macmillan, 1916
The Hungry Stones and Other Stories / Translated from the original Bengali
by various writers. London : Macmillan, 1916
My Reminiscences / translated by Surendranath Tagore. New York :
Macmillan, 1917
Lover's Gift and Crossing. London : Macmillan, 1918
Nationalism. London : Macmillan, 1917
The Curse at Farewell / translated by Edward Thompson. London : Harrap,
1924
Gora. London : Macmillan, 1924
Talks in China : Lectures Delivered in April and May, 1924. Calcutta :
Visva-Bharati Book-Shop, 1925
Red Oleanders : A Drama in One Act. London : Macmillan, 1925
Mahatmaji & the Depressed Humanity. Calcutta : Visva-Bharati
Bookshop, 1932
Wings of Death : the Last Poems of Rabindranath Tagore / translated by
Aurobindo Bose. London : Murray, 1960
Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore / edited by Krishna Dutta and
Andrew Robinson, with a foreword by Amartya Sen. Cambridge
University Press, 1997
Song Offerings (Gitanjali) / Translated and Introduced by Joe Winter.
London : Anvil, 2000