Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man » (Reprint)

Krishna Dutta is an author and translator specializing in the cultural history of Bengal. Her book, Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History, was published to critical acclaim and she is currently writing about the history of the first book of Indian cookery to be published in Britain. Andrew Robinson is the author of more than fifteen books, including The Art of Rabindranath Tagore and two books published by I.B.Tauris: Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye and Satyajit Ray: A Vision of Cinema (with Nemai Ghosh). He has written biographies of Albert Einstein, Michael Ventris and Thomas Young. He is the former literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement, is now a visiting fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge and a fulltime writer.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)—poet, philosopher, painter, novelist, playwright, composer, traveller, political commentator and Asia’s first Nobel Laureate—was one of his era’s cultural icons. Proclaimed as the greatest poet India has ever produced, Tagore left an astonishing legacy undimmed nearly 70 years after his death. But he was also an enigmatic, complex and contradictory figure, torn between India’s spiritual values and the spirit of the West. In this definitive biography, Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson explore the man behind the myth, presenting the power of his person, the power of his name and the power of his work. The result is an enlightening and exquisitely rendered portrayal—not of the legend but, to quote Tagore, of "the figure that once moved."

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgements xiii

Note on the spelling and pronunciation of Bengali xv

Foreword Anita Desai xvii

Introduction 1

1 The Tagores and 'Prince' Dwarkanath 17

2 Maharshi Debendranath 27

3 The House of the Tagores 34

4 Rabi 43

5 A Journey to the Himalayas 52

6 Adolescence 57

7 England 67

8 Renaissance in Bengal 78

9 Marriage and Bereavement 85

10 Peripatetic Litterateur 92

11 Manashi, The Lady of the Mind 101

12 The Shelidah Years 108

13 Family Life 124

14 Small Beginnings in Shantiniketan 133

15 The Swadeshi Movement 141

16 The Voice of Bengal 151

17 England and the USA 163

18 The Nobel Prize 180

19 Never at Rest 188

20 Japan and the USA 200

21 Anti-Imperialist 209

22 The Founding of a University 219

23 Anti-Non-cooperator 237

24 China and Japan 246

25 Argentina 253

26 Arguing with Gandhi 260

27 Italy, Mussolini and After 266

28 Nationalism versus Internationalism 274

29 Farewell to the West 287

30 Against the Raj 302

31 The Great Sentinel 308

32 Last Travels 315

33 Shantiniketan in the Thirties 323

34 The Self-destruction of Bengal 335

35 War, Tagore and the West 343

36 The Myriad-Minded Man 354

Postscript 371

Appendix 1 Tagore Family Tree 373

Appendix 2 Tagore's Travels 374

Notes 377

Bibliography 466

Index 481