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| The epithet, "myriad-minded" which Coleridge applied to Shakespeare seems to be more eminently applicable to Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) whose long life of eighty years was marked by ceaseless and torrential flow of creativity manifested in the richness and variety of all kinds of literary forms—dance, drama, music, painting and original organizational activities. Whatever he touched turned into gold. Touching the kindred points of heaven and earth he was both a man of action and of contemplation, a seer and also a pioneer in cooperative movement, a writer of most profound poems and an author of children's text-books including books of science, a nationalist and internationalist, a man of royal grandeur like his grandfather, a prince, and an ascetic like his father, a maharshi. He was both a poet and a painter, a dramatist and an actor, a philosopher and a social reformer, an educationist and a humanist. In his philosophy of life the best of the East and that of the West are reconciled into a harmonious whole enriching the quality and substance of life which he always saw steady and saw it whole. His life was marked as much by Shakespearean fecundity as by protean plasticity. His inclusive mind aspired after the Universal Man shining in the glory of creation and joie de vivre. Tagore's unfailing faith in man and divinity, his concern for women and solicitation for children, his sympathy for the poor and the downtrodden, his philosophical speculations and practical wisdom, his perception of the zeitgeist and the evolution of taste—all find expression in the all-encompassing sweep of his writings in a magnificent synthesis of philosophical profundity and aesthetic luxuriance. With the passage of time Tagore has only grown in stature and is now reckoned as an increasingly significant and complex personality. Whether seen as a great sentinel or a complete man, the finest exponent of the Bengal Renaissance or the harbinger of a new age, a majestic personality or a deeply scarred individual, it is rewarding to revisit Tagore—a miracle of literary history—in the light of modern criticism. The essays included in this Volume offer illuminating insights into various facets of Tagore's literary works, mind and personality. It will be found enjoyable as well as useful by students, scholars and general readers. |
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