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Translation of Rabindranath Tagore's 'Ode to Africa'
The India Africa Framework
  • Monish Ranjan Chatterjee, University of Dayton
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2015
Abstract

During his illustrious lifetime, Rabindranath Tagore travelled extensively around the world, spreading inspiration and gaining veneration in most destinations as the emissary of the East and of a deeply futuristic Universalist philosophy. An assessment of the intellectuals and cultural icons of the world whom Tagore encountered, interacted with, and influenced, is both astonishing and indeed still waiting to be adequately evaluated. His exchanges with Einstein, Wells, Rolland, Gide, Freud, Durant, Yeats, Rothenstein, Andrews, Noguchi, Gandhi, Radhakrishnan, Nehru, Bose and numerous others are well-documented. Tagore's literary works and public life centered on rejoicing in and celebrating everything unique and artistic in human culture. In the grandest sense, he saw all cultures (East, West, Middle-East, or Latin America) as equally rich in their potential to inspire lofty pursuits of the human mind. As much as he participated in India's freedom movement against British imperial rule, serving as the nation's inspirational voice through his lectures, teachings, literary works, and of course, his greatest forte -- poetry and musical compositions, Tagore empathized as well as identified with the cause of freedom and the struggle against oppression and violence everywhere in the world.

Inclusive pages
38-41
Document Version
Published Version
Comments

Document is provided for download with the permission of the author and the publisher. Permission documentation is on file.

A commentary on the translated poem is available here.

Publisher
Suyojan Multitech Services
Place of Publication
New Delhi, India
Citation Information
Monish Ranjan Chatterjee. "Translation of Rabindranath Tagore's 'Ode to Africa'" The India Africa Framework Vol. 1 Iss. 1 (2015)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/monish_chatterjee/83/