RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Rabindranath Tagore in Kolkata, c. 1915
Born: 7 May 1861(1861-05-07)
Calcutta, British India
Died: 7 August 1941 (aged 80)
Calcutta, British India
Occupation: poet, playwright, philosopher, composer, artist
Nationality: British Indian
Writing period: Bengal Renaissance
Influenced: D.R. Bendre, André Gide, Yasunari Kawabata, Kuvempu, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz
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Rabindranath Tagore (help·info)[?] (Bengali: ??????????? ?????,[?] IPA: [?obin?d??onat?? ??aku?] (help·info)) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941[?]), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev,[?] was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.

A Pirali Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta, Tagore first wrote poems at age eight. He published his first substantial poetry—under the pseudonym Bhanushingho ("Sun Lion")—and wrote his first short stories and dramas in 1877, at age sixteen. His home schooling, life in Shilaidaha, and travels made Tagore a nonconformist and pragmatist. Tagore strongly protested against the British Raj and gave his support to the Indian Independence Movement and Mahatma Gandhi. Tagore's life was tragic—he lost virtually his entire family and was devastated to witness Bengal's decline—but his life's work endured, in the form of his poetry and the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.

Tagore's works included numerous novels, short-stories, collection of songs, dance-drama, political and personal essays. Some prominent examples are Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World). His verse, short stories, and novels—many defined by rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation—received worldwide acclaim. Tagore was also a cultural reformer and polymath who modernised Bengali art by rejecting strictures binding it to classical Indian forms. Two songs from his rabindrasangeet canon are now the national anthems of Bangladesh and India: the Amar Shonar Bangla and the Jana Gana Mana.

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