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Gītāñjali

work by Tagore
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Excerpt from Rabindranath Tagore's GitanjaliVerse XXXIX of Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali (1910), as recited by Mohammed Sirajullah; audio in Bengali.

Gītāñjali, a collection of poetry, the most famous work by Rabindranath Tagore, published in India in 1910. Tagore then translated it into prose poems in English, as Gitanjali: Song Offerings, and it was published in 1912 with an introduction by William Butler Yeats.

Medieval Indian lyrics of devotion provided Tagore’s model for the poems of Gītāñjali. He also composed music for these lyrics. Love is the principal subject, although some poems detail the internal conflict between spiritual longings and earthly desires. Much of his imagery is drawn from nature, and the dominant mood is minor-key and muted. The collection helped win the Nobel Prize for Literature for Tagore in 1913, but some later critics did not agree that it represents Tagore’s finest work.

This article was most recently revised and updated by J.E. Luebering.