English
226: Tagore
| As
Petri Liukkonen writes, Rabindranath Tagore is the "greatest writer in
modern Indian literature, Bengali poet, novelist, educator, who won the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913." It would be a sad mistake to leave
Tagore out of a modern world literature survey course like ours. But to
do him justice, we would have to spend a month on both poetry and fiction,
not to mention his essays and educational projects.
Texts: I invite you to read through a few of Tagore's poems from Indolink's Collection of Poems by Rabindranath Tagore and to read as much of Gitanjali as you find appealing. (Note that the long introductory preface to Gitanjali was written by William Butler Yeats, who helped Tagore gain the world-wide audience that resulted in his receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.) But because of time constraints we will discuss only one of Tagore's short stories, "Punishment." Written in the Bengali language a century ago, this cleverly ironic and yet poignant story depicts a wife killed in unthinking anger by her own husband and a brother who risks his own wife's life to save his brothers's. Often anthologized, this ten-page story implicitly and ironically comments on resistance to oppression in society and in one's personal life. You can find William Radice's translation of this popular story on Google Books. (If you can't get it, email me for help.) Links: Here is a biography of Tagore written by Petri Liukkonen from his Books and Writers Website. |
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