Author: Subhas Mukhopadhyay
Publisher: Sahitya Akademi
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 58
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8126006730
Description
The author picks up his favorite stanzas from Tagore to explain the poet's concept of life and death, beginning and end, old and new.
Based on the Samvatsar Lectures XII delivered by him at the Festival of Letters, Sri Subhas Mukhopadyay take up for examination Rabindranath Tagore's poetry and thought. Lit up by his personal reminiscences of Tagore's impact on him as he was growing up in the 1920s in a small town in Bengal, the address highlights Tagore's relevance today in India in particular, and the world in general.
Starting from the earlier poems composed by Tagore at the end of the 19th century, he takes up through the poet's a long journey to his last poems written on his deathbed -- austere and taciturn like aphorisms.
He also takes up Tagore's prose writings and examines his response towards a variety of contemporary themes like modernism in literature, nationalism in politics, restructuring of the Indian economy, etc. What emerges is the picture of the complete man - the poet and visionary who refused to be a recluse and was ever alert and ready to respond to the needs of his country.