Mahmud Shah Qureshi :
Rabindranath Tagore, the most celebrated literary figure of the British-India during the past century and earlier, was known as Tagore, all around the world.
In 1913, he obtained the Nobel Prize and he was the first to receive this prestigious honour from among the great Asian genius. Fifty-six years ago, on the occasion of Tagore centenary I wrote:
The award to him of the Nobel Prize in 1913 was of little importance in the West, but for the oriental intelligentsia its affect was considerable. It was not Tagore-a poet of the East or of Asia, of India, or of Bengal-who was honoured, but rather a regional literature which, although the most developed among its Indian contemporaries, remained unnoticed by the world until this dramatic recognition of its maturity.1
But why this award of the Nobel Prize to a Bengali poet, how it happened in Stockholm, and what was the reaction of the parties concerned?
It is now known that Thomas Sturge Moore (1870- 1944), a Fellow of the Royal Society of England proposed for the first time to consider Gitanjali for the Prize. The official candidate from England was Thomas Hardy, the novelist, who unfortunately never got it. Orientalist Esaias Tegner (1843-1928), a member of the Swedish Academy knew some Bengali. But it is not certain how much support he made for Tagore.2 What attracted the Nobel Committee most was, as it seems the ‘idealistic tendency’ stipulated in Alfred Nobel’s Will and which is abundant in Gitanjali.
In the opinion of the recent biographers of Tagore, ‘The decisive contribution came from Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (1859-1940), a Swedish Poet now almost forgotten but who also obtained Nobel Prize in 19163 He considered Tagore as ‘One of the very greatest poets of our age.’ In his opinion, the loving and intense religious sense that permeates all his (Tagore’s) thoughts and feelings the purity of heart, and the noble and unaffected elevation of the style-all amount to a total impression of deep and rare spiritual beauty.’ 4 Moreover, academician Per Hallstrom (1866-1960) who was to report regarding the acceptability of the proposal to the Nobel committee made a very positive report, in which he came to the conclusion :
“It is certain, however, that no poet in Europe since the death of Goethe in 1832 can rival Tagore in noble humanity, in unaffected greatness, in classical tranquility.’ 5
On arriving to London in 1912 Tagore met artist William Rothenstein (1872-1945) who was greatly impressed by Gitanjali. Subsequently he introduced the poet and his works to W.B. Yeats and some other writers and artists. Yeats, in fact, edited Gitanjali along with an introduction but did not wholly corrected Tagore’s translation from the original Bengali, as it is believed in certain quarters.
In London, this time Tagore had extraordinary reception from the British elite and Indian intellectuals living there. On 10th July there was a grand dinner by the India Society for Tagore which made him near and dear to them more. We are tempted to quote someone present at the dinner and who seconded the toast after the proposal of the chairman, W.B Yeats. This was S.K. Ratcliff, a former editor of the Statesman who wrote many years later in the Daily News (7 August 1926):
“A few days before that meeting I had asked him why he had allowed his 50th year to go without having made any effort to reach the English-reading world. His answer, given with manifest sincerity, was very curious in the light of immediate events. The sprit of Bengali poetry, said he, is so remote from English that translation is impossible; and besides he added, his own English was so feeble that he could not venture upon versions of his own. At that moment the English ‘Gitanjali’ was in his wallet.’ With it he was to conquer the globe. 6
On 14th November 1913, Tagore received a cable with the news that he had won the Nobel Prize. There was no telephone in Shantiniketan at that time. Even without fully understanding the significance of the event, people there became jovial and wild. On 23rd November, some five hundred Calcutta citizens came to congratulate him. But Tagore was terribly out of mood and expressed in strong words as he found in them some of his critics who had maligned him by criticizing that he was under western influence. But the irony of fate is that ‘Now they had come to hail him for receiving western approbation.’7 Thereafter Tagore had indeed very difficult time as he had to ‘endure the penalties of greatness.’ However, his career flourished further with production in almost all the branches of literature and through an intellectual leadership that he provided for the East as well as for the West.· What is of more importance, Tagore’s writings started to be translated by great French and Spanish poets like Andre Gide and Jimenz, who themselves became Nobel Laureates few years later.8 Needless to mention; ‘Many other writers, translators and researchers contributed on Tagore-the Nobel Laureate in almost all the languages of the world.
Notes:
1. Article in The Unesco Courier, Paris, June, 1961; also in Culture and Development:
Dhaka, 1982; p.35.
2. Tagore met Tegner briefly in Paris (1912); the Bengali biographer of Tagore thinks that he indeed had a positive role but we followed Dutta and Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore, The Myriad -Minded Man: New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995, p.l85
3.Ibid.,p. 186
4. Ibid, p.182
5. Prasanta Kumar Paul, Rabijibani: Volume vi, Calcutta, Ananda Publishers, 2004(1993) p.438
6. Ibid. , p.318
7. Dutta And Robinson, op.cit .p. 182
8. Gide translated Gitanjali and Dakghar while; Jimenez rendered several works of Tag ore in Spanish in collaboration with his wife. n
Rabindranath Tagore, the most celebrated literary figure of the British-India during the past century and earlier, was known as Tagore, all around the world.
In 1913, he obtained the Nobel Prize and he was the first to receive this prestigious honour from among the great Asian genius. Fifty-six years ago, on the occasion of Tagore centenary I wrote:
The award to him of the Nobel Prize in 1913 was of little importance in the West, but for the oriental intelligentsia its affect was considerable. It was not Tagore-a poet of the East or of Asia, of India, or of Bengal-who was honoured, but rather a regional literature which, although the most developed among its Indian contemporaries, remained unnoticed by the world until this dramatic recognition of its maturity.1
But why this award of the Nobel Prize to a Bengali poet, how it happened in Stockholm, and what was the reaction of the parties concerned?
It is now known that Thomas Sturge Moore (1870- 1944), a Fellow of the Royal Society of England proposed for the first time to consider Gitanjali for the Prize. The official candidate from England was Thomas Hardy, the novelist, who unfortunately never got it. Orientalist Esaias Tegner (1843-1928), a member of the Swedish Academy knew some Bengali. But it is not certain how much support he made for Tagore.2 What attracted the Nobel Committee most was, as it seems the ‘idealistic tendency’ stipulated in Alfred Nobel’s Will and which is abundant in Gitanjali.
In the opinion of the recent biographers of Tagore, ‘The decisive contribution came from Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (1859-1940), a Swedish Poet now almost forgotten but who also obtained Nobel Prize in 19163 He considered Tagore as ‘One of the very greatest poets of our age.’ In his opinion, the loving and intense religious sense that permeates all his (Tagore’s) thoughts and feelings the purity of heart, and the noble and unaffected elevation of the style-all amount to a total impression of deep and rare spiritual beauty.’ 4 Moreover, academician Per Hallstrom (1866-1960) who was to report regarding the acceptability of the proposal to the Nobel committee made a very positive report, in which he came to the conclusion :
“It is certain, however, that no poet in Europe since the death of Goethe in 1832 can rival Tagore in noble humanity, in unaffected greatness, in classical tranquility.’ 5
On arriving to London in 1912 Tagore met artist William Rothenstein (1872-1945) who was greatly impressed by Gitanjali. Subsequently he introduced the poet and his works to W.B. Yeats and some other writers and artists. Yeats, in fact, edited Gitanjali along with an introduction but did not wholly corrected Tagore’s translation from the original Bengali, as it is believed in certain quarters.
In London, this time Tagore had extraordinary reception from the British elite and Indian intellectuals living there. On 10th July there was a grand dinner by the India Society for Tagore which made him near and dear to them more. We are tempted to quote someone present at the dinner and who seconded the toast after the proposal of the chairman, W.B Yeats. This was S.K. Ratcliff, a former editor of the Statesman who wrote many years later in the Daily News (7 August 1926):
“A few days before that meeting I had asked him why he had allowed his 50th year to go without having made any effort to reach the English-reading world. His answer, given with manifest sincerity, was very curious in the light of immediate events. The sprit of Bengali poetry, said he, is so remote from English that translation is impossible; and besides he added, his own English was so feeble that he could not venture upon versions of his own. At that moment the English ‘Gitanjali’ was in his wallet.’ With it he was to conquer the globe. 6
On 14th November 1913, Tagore received a cable with the news that he had won the Nobel Prize. There was no telephone in Shantiniketan at that time. Even without fully understanding the significance of the event, people there became jovial and wild. On 23rd November, some five hundred Calcutta citizens came to congratulate him. But Tagore was terribly out of mood and expressed in strong words as he found in them some of his critics who had maligned him by criticizing that he was under western influence. But the irony of fate is that ‘Now they had come to hail him for receiving western approbation.’7 Thereafter Tagore had indeed very difficult time as he had to ‘endure the penalties of greatness.’ However, his career flourished further with production in almost all the branches of literature and through an intellectual leadership that he provided for the East as well as for the West.· What is of more importance, Tagore’s writings started to be translated by great French and Spanish poets like Andre Gide and Jimenz, who themselves became Nobel Laureates few years later.8 Needless to mention; ‘Many other writers, translators and researchers contributed on Tagore-the Nobel Laureate in almost all the languages of the world.
Notes:
1. Article in The Unesco Courier, Paris, June, 1961; also in Culture and Development:
Dhaka, 1982; p.35.
2. Tagore met Tegner briefly in Paris (1912); the Bengali biographer of Tagore thinks that he indeed had a positive role but we followed Dutta and Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore, The Myriad -Minded Man: New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995, p.l85
3.Ibid.,p. 186
4. Ibid, p.182
5. Prasanta Kumar Paul, Rabijibani: Volume vi, Calcutta, Ananda Publishers, 2004(1993) p.438
6. Ibid. , p.318
7. Dutta And Robinson, op.cit .p. 182
8. Gide translated Gitanjali and Dakghar while; Jimenez rendered several works of Tag ore in Spanish in collaboration with his wife. n
