Gitanjali (Bengali) or Song Offerings is a collection of 103 English poems, largely translations, of the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. This volume became very famous in the West, and was widely translated.
Gitanjali ( Gitanjoli) is also the title of an earlier Bengali volume (1910) of 157 mostly devotional songs. The word gitanjoli is composed from "git", song, and "anjoli", offering, and thus means – "An offering of songs"; but the word for offering, anjoli, has a strong devotional connotation, so the title may also be interpreted as "prayer offering of song".
from the book
A few days ago I said to a distinguished Bengali doctor of medicine, `I
know no German, yet if a translation of a German poet had moved me,
I would go to the British Museum and find books in English that would
tell me something of his life, and of the history of his thought. But
though these prose translations from Rabindranath Tagore have stirred
my blood as nothing has for years, I shall not know anything of his life,
and of the movements of thought that have made them possible, if
some Indian traveller will not tell me.' It seemed to him natural that I
should be moved, for he said, `I read Rabindranath every day, to read
one line of his is to forget all the troubles of the world.' I said, `An
Englishman living in London in the reign of Richard the Second had he
been shown translations from Petrarch or from Dante, would have
found no books to answer his questions, but would have questioned
some Florentine banker or Lombard merchant as I question you. For all
I know, so abundant and simple is this poetry, the new renaissance has
been born in your country and I shall never know of it except by
hearsay.' He answered, `We have other poets, but none that are his
equal; we call this the epoch of Rabindranath. No poet seems to me as
famous in Europe as he is among us. He is as great in music as in
poetry, and his songs are sung from the west of India into Burma
wherever Bengali is spoken. He was already famous at nineteen when
he wrote his first novel; and plays when he was but little older, are still
played in Calcutta. I so much admire the completeness of his life; when
he was very young he wrote much of natural objects, he would sit all
day in his garden; from his twenty-fifth year or so to his thirty-fifth
perhaps, when he had a great sorrow, he wrote the most beautiful love
poetry in our language'; and then he said with deep emotion, `words
can never express what I owed at seventeen to his love poetry. After
that his art grew deeper, it became religious and philosophical; all the
inspiration of mankind are in his hymns. He is the first among our
saints who has not refused to live, but has spoken out of Life itself, and
that is why we give him our love.' I may have changed his well-chosen
words in my memory but not his thought. `A little while ago he was to
read divine service in one of our churches---we of the Brahma Samaj
use your word `church' in English---it was the largest in Calcutta and
not only was it crowded, but the streets were all but impassable
because of the people.'
from the book
A few days ago I said to a distinguished Bengali doctor of medicine, `I
know no German, yet if a translation of a German poet had moved me,
I would go to the British Museum and find books in English that would
tell me something of his life, and of the history of his thought. But
though these prose translations from Rabindranath Tagore have stirred
my blood as nothing has for years, I shall not know anything of his life,
and of the movements of thought that have made them possible, if
some Indian traveller will not tell me.' It seemed to him natural that I
should be moved, for he said, `I read Rabindranath every day, to read
one line of his is to forget all the troubles of the world.' I said, `An
Englishman living in London in the reign of Richard the Second had he
been shown translations from Petrarch or from Dante, would have
found no books to answer his questions, but would have questioned
some Florentine banker or Lombard merchant as I question you. For all
I know, so abundant and simple is this poetry, the new renaissance has
been born in your country and I shall never know of it except by
hearsay.' He answered, `We have other poets, but none that are his
equal; we call this the epoch of Rabindranath. No poet seems to me as
famous in Europe as he is among us. He is as great in music as in
poetry, and his songs are sung from the west of India into Burma
wherever Bengali is spoken. He was already famous at nineteen when
he wrote his first novel; and plays when he was but little older, are still
played in Calcutta. I so much admire the completeness of his life; when
he was very young he wrote much of natural objects, he would sit all
day in his garden; from his twenty-fifth year or so to his thirty-fifth
perhaps, when he had a great sorrow, he wrote the most beautiful love
poetry in our language'; and then he said with deep emotion, `words
can never express what I owed at seventeen to his love poetry. After
that his art grew deeper, it became religious and philosophical; all the
inspiration of mankind are in his hymns. He is the first among our
saints who has not refused to live, but has spoken out of Life itself, and
that is why we give him our love.' I may have changed his well-chosen
words in my memory but not his thought. `A little while ago he was to
read divine service in one of our churches---we of the Brahma Samaj
use your word `church' in English---it was the largest in Calcutta and
not only was it crowded, but the streets were all but impassable
because of the people.'
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