Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Thakur <a href="/facts/Fellows_of_The_Royal_Asiatic_Society_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland/AU8BTtEN">FRAS</a> (Bengali: [roˈbindɾonatʰ ˈʈʰakuɾ]; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore /rəˈbɪndrənɑːt təˈɡɔːr/ ⓘ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was an Indian <a href="/facts/Bengalis/zUbaEVXE">Bengali</a> polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the <a href="/facts/Bengal_Renaissance/kERg7qKu">Bengal Renaissance</a>. He reshaped <a href="/facts/Bengali_literature/8BI4kNxC">Bengali literature</a> and <a href="/facts/Music_of_Bengal/ItS2GJDU">music</a> as well as <a href="/facts/Indian_art/fyf0XDmc">Indian art</a> with <a href="/facts/Contextual_Modernism/ultYP5h4">Contextual Modernism</a> in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of <a href="/facts/Gitanjali/FjIacT1E">Gitanjali</a>. In 1913, Tagore became the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and also the first lyricist to win the <a href="/facts/1913_Nobel_Prize_in_Literature/ey8wHYcl">Nobel Prize in Literature</a>. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; where his elegant <a href="/facts/Prose/cwoJry3a">prose</a> and magical poetry were widely popular in the <a href="/facts/Indian_subcontinent/0XUWGXpx">Indian subcontinent</a>. He was a fellow of the <a href="/facts/Royal_Asiatic_Society_of_Great_Britain_and_Ireland/vrssbWDX">Royal Asiatic Society</a>. Referred to as "the <a href="/facts/Bard/a0wybHV4">Bard</a> of Bengal", Tagore was known by the <a href="/facts/Sobriquets/QhuggxLj">sobriquets</a> Gurudeb, Kobiguru, and Biswokobi.
A <a href="/facts/Bengali_Brahmin/2ShtmrkH">Bengali Brahmin</a> from <a href="/facts/Calcutta/k0HVgEYm">Calcutta</a> with ancestral <a href="/facts/Zamindar/66zChwor">gentry</a> roots in <a href="/facts/Burdwan_district/6B0g1Iqs">Burdwan district</a> and <a href="/facts/Jessore_District/9LLVeqFR">Jessore</a>, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released <a href="/facts/Bh%25C4%2581nusi%25E1%25B9%2583ha_%25E1%25B9%25ACh%25C4%2581kurer_Pa%25E1%25B8%258D%25C4%2581val%25C4%25AB/qW7RXWKn">his first substantial poems</a> under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a <a href="/facts/Humanist/lM8R0wLs">humanist</a>, <a href="/facts/Universalist/KWh6A8Cl">universalist</a>, <a href="/facts/Internationalism_(politics)/fMQg0U6T">internationalist</a>, and ardent critic of <a href="/facts/Nationalism/IECpIhm0">nationalism</a>, he denounced the <a href="/facts/British_Raj/hBe6wvPS">British Raj</a> and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of <a href="/facts/Visva-Bharati_University/tkvsodfW">Visva-Bharati University</a>.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. <a href="/facts/Gitanjali/FjIacT1E">Gitanjali</a> (Song Offerings), <a href="/facts/Gora_(novel)/4JXIy3ww">Gora</a> (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (<a href="/facts/The_Home_and_the_World/hdwxeszo">The Home and the World</a>) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "<a href="/facts/Jana_Gana_Mana/TjMa98Se">Jana Gana Mana</a>" and <a href="/facts/Bangladesh/NXk4f78Y">Bangladesh</a>'s "<a href="/facts/Amar_Shonar_Bangla/WWWcMYct">Amar Shonar Bangla</a>". The <a href="/facts/Sri_Lanka_Matha/mcfYwpKM">Sri Lankan national anthem</a> was also inspired by his work. His song "<a href="/facts/Banglar_Mati_Banglar_Jol/Pdgc5X8U">Banglar Mati Banglar Jol</a>" has been adopted as the state anthem of <a href="/facts/West_Bengal/0B5bxvbW">West Bengal</a>.

Rabindranath Tagore open-in-new

Rabindranath Tagore