Tagore's Gitanjali

We have already seen the history of Rabindranath Tagore's translation of Gitanjali which is thought of as a landmark in the history of Indian literature in English translation. Tagore translated his works himself and many critics have pointed out the difference between Tagore the Bangla writer and Tagore in English translation. Sujit Mukherjee goes to the extent of calling Tagore's act of translation an act of perjury, as he tried to adjust his work to suit the tastes of the west (123). But the primary question is why Tagore decided to translate his works into English, especially when his compatriots were ‘going native' in a bid to resist the colonizer. Sisir Kumar Das comments that Tagore launched his English translations to escape being “a mere Bengali poet” (qtd in Kothari 22). It is thought that his friends urged him to translate so that he could be known outside the realms of his native land. The reasons that prompted Tagore to translate into English seem to be valid even today for the regional Indian writer – to be known at the national level you have to be translated into English rather than any other Indian language.

The reception of the English Gitanjali is also revelatory. The English translation was actually a collection of verses and songs from Gitanjali and his other Bangla works Naivedya, Kheya and Gitimalya. . Mukherjee observes: “As songs their essential simplicity, of form as well as of content, was amenable to recapture' and ‘receiving anew' and ‘dressing it in other clothes' in English” (105). Writers like Edward Thompson and Victoria Ocampo have recorded that Tagore doubted the Westerners' capacity to understand Eastern thoughts, and had tailored his translations to accommodate their inclinations. The result was an English Gitanjali which was heavily inclined to the mystical aspect of poetry. Kothari points out the timing of the publication of this anthology in the west preceding the First World War. To the western world that was passing through an extremely troubled period, it seemed to embody the spirit of India . As Kothari points out, “The binary dichotomous view that India had spirituality while the West had rationalism was reinforced by the image of Tagore” (22). This image was a carefully cultivated one by the author himself with the result that the English Gitanjali “began to exist in a transcendental space, where it had no connection with other sides of Tagore's poetic and political career” (22).