English Writings of Rabindranath Thakur.

Tagore at 23

Introuction: Gurudev, as he is known today, Rabindranath Thakur is undoubtedly

the intellectual polymath of Indian Renaissance. He became a legend while alive
and after death he had attained the status of an institution. He left no human
emotion unexplored in his poems and plays. Although he is esteemed as a Bengali
poet, his achievements in English are not negligible. Sahitya Academy had
compiled his English Writings in four voluminous volumes under the guidance and
editorial activities by revered scholar Prof. Sisir Kumar Das. In fact, his translation
of Gitanjali in English titled Song Offerings not only brought Nobel Prize for
him but also made him a World-Poet or Vishwakabi.
Sahitya Academy had compiled thousands of pages of his writings in English. The
vast corpus (Amount or Quantity) of this English writings is enviable to many
notable contemporary Indian writers in English. Ian Iack wrote, Tagore's pen was
a kind of oriental ectoplasm, floating high above our materialist western heads, and
ungraspable. He added, In fact, I could not forget his description of the Taj Mahal
in a brief sentence. To him, the Taj is-"a teardrop on the face of eternity".
Tagore is called the Poet Seer. The original surname of the Tagores was
Bondopadhya or Vandyopadhyaya.It was coined from the elements vandya
venerable + upadhyaya teacher." The title changed from Vandyopadhyaya to
Kushari;from Kushari to Thakur and from Thakur to Tagore in course of time.
Thakur like Shakespeare had no Institutional education. Like Shakespeares little
Latin and less Greek, he, too, had little knowledge of English. He got the basics
of English language and Western Literature by private tutors. He himself stated that

he started learning English at 51. And admittedly he had some flaws in his English
grammar and rhetoric which he had never tried to hide. He belonged to the late
Victorian period and had written in Victorian style. Its an undeniable fact that he
could not write English like his European counterparts but that does not mean that
his proficiency in English was doubtful.
Irritated by his silly mistakes while rewriting the introduction of the Gitanjali even
his best admirer and friend W.B.Yeats once became so angry that he condemned
him saying: No Indian knows English, and you are no exception. In later years
a rather disillusioned Yeats, in private conversation, commented Tagore had no
sense of the nuances of English words. Its a dispute whether the comment was
out of jealousy or a fair critique because people say that W.B.Yeats became very
much jealous in seeing Tagores glamorous popularity in later years of their
relationship. Of course, it would not be denied that Yeats initial relationship with
Tagore was blinded by his emotional admiration to an Oriental sage, which in
reality, Tagore was not.
Another American friend of him E.P. Thomson wanted to correct his mistakes to
save his reputation. Tagore declined and the friendship turned to enmity. He
politely refused a similar proposal by another famous English poet Robert Bridges
also. But these do not mean that Thakur was not aware of his weakness and faults.
He knew his limitations and expressed these lapses time and again in his letters to
his near and dear ones. Practically there is a story behind Tagores English writings
and translations. A Renowned Bengali scholar from Cambridge University was a
genuine admirer of Tagore. In order to show his reverence to Tagore, he translated
a number of his poems in English and presented a copy of the book to Tagore in
1912. He wished to surprise Tagore and thought that Tagore would feel happy. But
Tagore reacted vehemently and told that gentleman that he could not translate his
poems properly, he had done great offence in distorting his ideas. And decided to
show the Cambridge scholar what the proper translations of his poems should be. It
happened when Tagore was 50.Tagore started writing and translating his works in
English from thence onward.
Renowned Tagore Scholar, Fakrul Alom of Dhaka University, has done a very
lucid and factual research on Tagores English. An overview of the thesis may help
us realizing the matter. Alom wrote, If Tagore himself is to be believed on most

occasions, his English writings are not good at all. Skimming through the excellent
Selected Letters of Tagore edited by Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, one is
bound to find Tagore again and again denigrating his English prose, or
acknowledging ruefully his inadequate command over the language, or apologizing
for writing in the language at all. Initially, he would even request people who he
knew were outstanding in the language to help him edit his work. As an example
Alom cited Tagores letter to Ezra Pound. There, for instance, he wrote: I am not
at all strong in my English grammarplease do not hesitate to make corrections
when necessary. Then again I do not know the exact value of your English
words...So in my use of words there must be lack of proportion and
appropriateness (Letter 56, 103).
As he wrote to Pound in another letter, he was afraid that in his English versions
the Gitanjali poems would be bereft of their language and suggestiveness (Letter
58). After he had begun lecturing in America, he noted wryly in a letter to his
daughter Bela how he had been reluctant to appear in the lecture circuit because he
was absolutely certain that if he were to lecture in the English language he
could not possibly keep his dignity (Letter 60, 109).
Professor Alom cited a number of similar letters and essays where the poet
expressed with a childlike simplicity his weakness in English. As for his essays, he
told Ramananda Chatterjee, the editor of the Modern Review, the journal that was
to be the forum for many of them, Please keep an eye out for errors in its English
I write the language without knowing it, almost by guesswork. He goes on to
claim that an Englishman who had glanced over one of them had been too benign
for he had only removed a surfeit of definite articles, supplied some missing ones
and corrected some misapplied prepositions (Letter 64, 115).
Writing in Bengali to Indira Devi Chaudhuri, the niece who was the recipient of
some of his most heart-felt letters, Tagore points out how amazed he was by the
success of the English versions of Gitanjali since he himself knew that his English
was simply not good enough. After all, he tells her, didnt he know about the
pitfalls of the language, the definite and indefinite articles, the prepositions, the
use of shall and willpitfalls which could not be avoided by intuition and
could be acquired only through tuition. As he suggested wryly, he actually knew
English well enough to say that he did not know it (Letter 65, 118).To his good

friend and steadfast promoter William Rothenstein, he added to his list of failings
in the language, his lack of knowledge of English set phrases and inability on
many occasions to write simple matter-of-fact things in English (Letter 82, 141).
When E. P. Thompson kept suggesting that he would like to translate some of his
works, Tagore responded initially by saying that he liked the idea and wittily
confessed his failings in English thus: You know I began to pay court to your
language when I was fifty. It was pretty late for me ever to hope to win her heart
(Letter 162, 254). In his correspondence with Thomas Sturge Moore he claimed
that his English was like a frail boat (Letter 171, 273) and said that that he did
not trust his own judgment about anything written in that language, whether
verse or prose (Letter 197, 311).[Fakrul Alam,Dhaka University:Rupkatha
Journal]

Summing Up: Interestingly many of his usages which were considered having
faults during his time, have become the characteristic features of Indian English
today. If W.B.Yeats were true then Thakur is definitely a pioneer of Indian
English whose faults have been accepted by the posterity not as faults but special
features of English language spoken by the largest number of people of the world
which is even greater than the accumulated population of Great Britain and
America, the two largest English speaking countries of the world.(David Cristal)

Bernard Shaw created a character in one of his palylet caricaturing this Indian
Intellectual Polymath and named him Stupendranath Beggor. Russell
condemned his writings as Intellectual Rubbish. Graham Greene doubted
whether Yeats would find interest in Tagore if he had lived in the sixties. But, still
its undeniable that Tagore is an Icon, an Institution to both East and West. His
English Writings possess the quality of permanence which will never go-off.
[1450 Words. Date:05-05-2016/i.s]
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