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The “Foreign Reincarnation” of Rabindranath Tagore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Nabaneeta Sen
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Extract

It was in the autumn of 1912, when Ezra Pound “went to Mr. Yeats' rooms and found him much excited over the advent of a great poet, someone ‘greater than any of us.’” This was the beginning of the rather extraordinary story of Rabindranath Tagore's appearance on the Western literary scene, which was to earn him a great deal of sudden fame, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in November, 1913. The Western appreciation of Tagore had a sensational quality which was striking when it came but looked even more unusual when viewed later after the abrupt craze was over and Tagore was largely forgotten.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , February 1966 , pp. 275 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1966

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References

1 Pound, Ezra, “Rabindranath Tagore,” in Fortnightly Review, XCIII (January-June, 1913), 573.Google Scholar

2 Dimock, Edward C., “Rabindranath Tagore, ‘the Greatest Baul of Bengal’,” The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XIX, No. 1, November 1959, p. 34.Google Scholar

3 Tagore's letter to William Rothenstein, quoted in William Rothenstein, Since Fifty (London, n. d.), p. III.

4 Forster, E. Morgan, Abinger Harvest (London, 1936), p. 320.Google Scholar

5 Quoted in William Rothenstein, Since Fifty, p. 112.

6 Fortnightly Review, p. 572. (Brackets Ezra Pound's.)

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Fortnightly Review, p. 571.

10 The Westminster Gazette, December 7, 1912.

11 The New Statesman, April 19, 1913.

12 Times Literary Supplement, November 7, 1912.

13 The Nation, January 24, 1914. Cf. The Athenaeum, January 23, 1915, contrasting One Hundred Poems of Kabir with “Tagore's Best Work,” where “poetical composition” is used “for its own sake,” and not “to the exercise of religious influence”—as it is in Kabir.

14 The Nation and Athenaeum, February 9, 1924.

15 The Letters of Ezra Pound 1907–1941, ed. D. D. Paige (New York 1950), pp. 44–45.

16 Ibid., p. 55.

17 Pound, Letters, p. 55.

18 Quoted in William Rothenstein, p. III.

19 Ibid.

20 Pound, Letters, p. 55.

21 Ibid.

22 Quoted in Joseph Hone, W. B. Yeats, 1865–1939, p. 459.

23 See, Sen, Sukumar, Bānglā Sūhityer Itihās, Vol. III, 3rd ed. (Calcutta: Eastern Publishers, 1961)Google Scholar. (A History of Bengali Literature; the entire volume deals with Tagore.)

24 Macmillan: London, 1913, pp. 19–20. Bengali original, Gitāñjali (Indian Press: Allahabad), No. 157, p. 178.Google Scholar

25 Gītāñjali, Eng., No. 63, p. 58. Original: Gītāñjali, Beng., No. 3, p. 4.

26 Gītāñjali, Eng., No. 22, p. 18. Original: Gitabitān (Visvabharati: Calcutta, 1958), p. 463.

27 Lover's Gift and Crossing, (Macmillan: London, 1918), “Crossing,” No. 18, p. 74. Original: Gitabitān, p. 124.

28 Lover's Gift and Crossing (Macmillan: London, 1918), pp. 1–2Google Scholar. The Original: Balākamacr; (Visva-Bharati: Calcutta, 1916), pp. 19–25Google Scholar. Translated into English by Aurobinda Bose, in A Flight of Swans (John Murray: London, 1955), pp. 15–19.Google Scholar

29 Paris-Soir, August 9, 1941.

30 Quoted in Guha, N., “Rabindranath in the West,” Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, I, 66.Google Scholar

31 Letters to a Friend, ed. Andrews, C. F. (London, 1928), pp. 180–182.Google Scholar

32 Pound, Letters, p. 62.

33 Pound, Fortnightly Review, p. 574.

34 Quoted in Rolland and Tagore, ed. Aronson, A. and Kripalani, K. (Calcutta: 1945), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

35 Natorp, Paul in “Stunden Mit Tagore,” translated in Rabindranath Tagore in Germany, ed. And trans. Rothermund, Dietmar, General ed. Heimo Rau (New Delhi, 1961), pp. 34–5.Google Scholar

36a L'Eclair, June 20, 1921.

36b L'Eclair, June 20, 1921.

37 Letters to a Friend, p. 161.

38 Ibid., p. 169.

39 Ibid. See Radhakrishnan, S., The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore (London; Macmillan, 1918) Chapter V, pp. 254 ff.Google Scholar

40 In the preparation of the lists, we have used the following bibliographies: (1) “A Tagore Bibliography” in Tagore Centenary Exhibition, Lalit Kala Akademi (New Delhi, 1961), pp. 25–72; (2) Aronson, A., Rabindranath Through Western Eyes (Allahabad, 1943), pp. 137–153Google Scholar; (3) Rabindranath Tagore: A Centenary Volume, 1861–1961, pp. 504–519Google Scholar; (4) Kitch, mEthel May, Rabindranath Tagore: A Bibliography (Reprinted from the Bulletin of Bibliography, Vol. II) Oberlin College Library, Bulletin No. 6 (Oberlin, 1922).Google Scholar

41 Sadhana. Tr. by the author (London, 1913). The Religion of Man (London, 1931)Google Scholar. East and West (The Hague, 1935).Google Scholar

42 Nationalism (London, 1917)Google Scholar. Personality (London, 1917)Google Scholar. Thought Relics (New York, 1921)Google Scholar. Creative Unity (London, 1922)Google Scholar. Lectures and Addresses by Rabindranath Tagore, selected by Anthony Soares (London, 1928)Google Scholar. The Tagore Birthday Book, ed. by Andrews, C. F. (London, 1929)Google Scholar. Thoughts from Rabindranath Tagore, compiled by C. F. Andrews (London, 1929)Google Scholar.

43 Le Religion de I'homme, tr. par Jane Droz-Viguie (Paris, 1933). Sadhana, tr. par Jean Herbert (Paris, 1940).

44 Le Religion du Poète, tr. par A. Tougard de Boismilon (Paris, 1924). Nationalisme, tr. par C. Georges-Bazile (Paris, 1924).

45 Sadhana, tr. Helene Meyer-Franck (München, 1921).

46 Nationalisms, tr. Helene Meyer-Franck (Berlin, 1918). Flustern der Seele, tr. Helene Meyer-Franck (München, 1921).

47 See, for example, Ayub-Datta, Abu Sayyed “Kavye Adhunikata O Rabindranath,” Visva-Bharati Patrika, Vol. XV, No. 3Google Scholar; and Bose, Buddhadeva, “Rabindranath Tagore and Bengali Prose,” Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, Vol. II, 1962.Google Scholar

48 “Not even Victor Hugo had a wider range of form and mood.” Thompson, Edward, Rabindranath Tagore, His Life and Worlds (London, Calcutta, 1921), p. 57.Google Scholar