Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7164] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on March 18, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of the project gutenberg
EBOOK Gitanjali ***
Originally scanned at sacred-texts.com by John B.
Hare. This eBook was produced by Chetan Jain,
Viswas G and Anand Rao at Bharat Literature
The Gitanjali or ‘song offerings’ by Rabindranath
Tagore (1861—1941), Nobel prize for literature
1913, with an introduction by William B. Yeats (1865—1939),
Nobel prize for literature 1923. First published
in 1913.
This work is in public domain according to the Berne
convention since January 1st 1992.
GITANJALI
A collection of prose translations made by the author
from the original Bengali
With an introduction by
W. B. Yeats
to William ROTHENSTEIN
A few days ago I said to a distinguished Bengali doctor
of medicine, ’I know no German, yet if a translation
of a German poet had moved me, I would go to the British
Museum and find books in English that would tell me
something of his life, and of the history of his thought.
But though these prose translations from Rabindranath
Tagore have stirred my blood as nothing has for years,
I shall not know anything of his life, and of the
movements of thought that have made them possible,
if some Indian traveller will not tell me.’
It seemed to him natural that I should be moved,
for he said, ’I read Rabindranath every day,
to read one line of his is to forget all the troubles
of the world.’ I said, ’An Englishman
living in London in the reign of Richard the Second
had he been shown translations from Petrarch or from
Dante, would have found no books to answer his questions,
but would have questioned some Florentine banker or
Lombard merchant as I question you. For all
I know, so abundant and simple is this poetry, the
new renaissance has been born in your country and
I shall never know of it except by hearsay.’
He answered, ’We have other poets, but none
that are his equal; we call this the epoch of Rabindranath.
No poet seems to me as famous in Europe as he is
among us. He is as great in music as in poetry,
and his songs are sung from the west of India into
Burma wherever Bengali is spoken. He was already
famous at nineteen when he wrote his first novel;
and plays when he was but little older, are still
played in Calcutta. I so much admire the completeness
of his life; when he was very young he wrote much of
