Selected Writings on Literature and Language

by Tagore, Rabindranath; Das, Sisir Kumar; Chaudhuri, Sukanta

• ISBN13: 9780198069683
• ISBN10: 0198069685
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

While Rabindranath Tagore needs no introduction, his place as a critic has been partially eclipsed by his fame as a creative writer. One of the founders of modern Bengali critical thought and among the most perceptive analysts in the language, his corpus of critical writings spanning almost his entire literary career, comprises more than one hundred pieces of varying length. The volume includes essays which reveal Tagore's engagement with the central issues of criticism, as well as with literary theory and aesthetics. Bringing together an authoritative selection of Tagore's critical writings, most of which have not been translated before, this book also includes a detailed introduction and extensive notes.

Author Biography

Sisir Kumar Das (1936-2003) was formerly Tagore Professor, Department of Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies University of Delhi. Sukanta Chaudhuri is Professor of English Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Silent Poet, Untaught Poet	p. 22
'De Profundis	p. 29
On Changes in the State of Poetry	p. 37
Baul Songs	p. 42
Literature (1889)	p. 49
From The Five Elements	p. 51
A First Acquaintance	p. 60
Prose And Verse	p. 68
The Significance of a Poem	p. 75
Lucidity	p. 75
Mirth	p. 79
The Measure of Mirth	p. 84
A Novel Ramayana	p. 91
The Theatre	p. 95
Children's Rhymes	p. 101
Rural Literature	p. 128
World Literature	p. 138
Literary Creation	p. 151
The Sense Of Beauty	p. 164
Bengali National Literature	p. 179
The Historical Novel	p. 194
A Poet's Biography	p. 199
Vidyapati's Radh1ka	p. 203
The Nature of Krishna	p. 207
The Meghadutam	p. 222
Kumarasambhavam and Shakuntala	p. 226
Shakuntala	p. 237
The Ramayana	p. 252
Literature (1924)	p. 258
Creation	p. 265
The Poet's Defence	p. 274
Modern Poetry	p. 280
The Philosophy of Literature	p. 293
Presidential Address	p. 310
The Poet Yeats	p. 320
The True Nature of Literature	p. 326
The Prose Poem	p. 331
Introduction to the Bengali Language	p. 335
About Language	p. 346
The Bengali Of Maktabs and Madrasas	p. 358
Notes	p. 361
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