Gitanjali

By Rabindranath Tagore

Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore is a collection of deeply spiritual and lyrical poems that explore themes of love, nature, and the divine. Immerse yourself in Tagore's evocative verses and experience the profound beauty of his poetic expression.

• Engage with Tagore's soul-stirring poetry that transcends boundaries.
• Reflect on the universal themes of love, spirituality, and the interconnectedness of all beings.
• Delve into the intimate connection between nature and the human experience.
• Experience the elegance and lyrical quality of Tagore's verse.
• This edition presents a faithful translation of Gitanjali, a timeless masterpiece that earned Tagore the Nobel Prize in Literature, making it a treasure for poetry lovers and seekers of spiritual wisdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fingerprint Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9789354408724

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an Indian poet, composer, philosopher, and painter from Bengal. Born to a prominent Brahmo Samaj family, Tagore was raised mostly by servants following his mother’s untimely death. His father, a leading philosopher and reformer, hosted countless artists and intellectuals at the family mansion in Calcutta, introducing his children to poets, philosophers, and musicians from a young age. Tagore avoided conventional education, instead reading voraciously and studying astronomy, science, Sanskrit, and classical Indian poetry. As a teenager, he began publishing poems and short stories in Bengali and Maithili. Following his father’s wish for him to become a barrister, Tagore read law for a brief period at University College London, where he soon turned to studying the works of Shakespeare and Thomas Browne. In 1883, Tagore returned to India to marry and manage his ancestral estates. During this time, Tagore published his Manasi (1890) poems and met the folk poet Gagan Harkara, with whom he would work to compose popular songs. In 1901, having written countless poems, plays, and short stories, Tagore founded an ashram, but his work as a spiritual leader was tragically disrupted by the deaths of his wife and two of their children, followed by his father’s death in 1905. In 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first lyricist and non-European to be awarded the distinction. Over the next several decades, Tagore wrote his influential novel The Home and the World (1916), toured dozens of countries, and advocated on behalf of Dalits and other oppressed peoples.

Reviews for Gitanjali

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very 'ecstasy of the spirit' - I liked some of it very much but overall it's not a feeling that I relate to. I should have read it in my late teens when I was interested more in spiritual matters.

[gbill_7 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It’s a little surprising that this is the work which captivated W.B. Yeats and led to the Nobel Prize in literature for Tagore. Many of the elements that make him great are present – his humility, reverence for the poor, and the feelings of reverie in life – but he is less poetic and more one-dimensional than in other works. This particular edition was not well edited either, containing a few typos. I would recommend “Selected Poems” or his prose work “The Home and the World” over “Gitanjali”.This was my favorite piece, poem #29 of the 103:“He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.”

[aeromaxtran-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where the words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever widening thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure." Thus begins this small but rich collection of poems by the Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore. He sings of the ages that are the gift of the gods. He explores the abundance of human experience from birth to death and beyond. Eros has its place as well in the poems that explore the humanity of young and old. All the while the beauty of nature does not escape his attention. The author's own translation into English from the original Bengali does not lose the musical quality that must exist in the original language. One may open to almost any page to experience beautiful poetry like these line from Poem 59:"The morning light has flooded my eyes---this is thy message to my heart. Thy face is bent from above, thy eyes look down on my eyes, and my heart has touched thy feet."(p 77)With an introduction by W. B. Yeats from the original 1913 edition this is a great introduction to a protean writer. His poetry and prose compares with Goethe or Dante in its impact on both his home of India and the world.

[g026r · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The sites I record my books on — LibraryThing and GoodReads — are filled with glowing 5-star reviews of this work, but I'm just not feeling it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I can't remember the last time a book of poetry has left me so utterly unmoved.Perhaps something was lost in Tagore's own translation from Bengali verse to English prose-poems; perhaps it was the decision to go with heavily Biblical-sounding language, full of thees and thous and -sts; but in the end I was left with a feeling that, despite all the protestations and declarations of love and faith, that it was all very sterile — like someone writing about emotions they'd only ever been told about in passing.

[rrhowell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When I first read this, I asked how it could be that I never had this suggested to me in any class. Of course because we tend to ignore authors who are not from Europe or America. I'd heard of Tagore, but his poetry blew me away. I keep coming back to this.

[yapete · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A few years ago I lost a good friend to a car accident. He was Indian and at his memorial service they read Gitanjali 96. I have to admit I was unfamiliar with Tagore at the time, but I thought it was the most beuatiful and appropriate poem I have ever heard. Tagore's poems are spiritual and mysterious without being religious, and the language is just amazingly beautiful.