Abstract
This essay explores how Tagore questions the terms in which we understand both the contestations and interchanges between ‘East’ and ‘West’: he does this by drawing our attention to specific literary instances, notably certain works by Kalidasa. The essay argues that Tagore’s ‘nature’ is not innocent, but a live political instrument; and Tagore’s politics has to do with the liberating aspects of humanism, aesthetics and experiencing the world. Tagore claims there was a shift in the English view on nature, as exemplified by the work of the Romantic poets; here, Tagore is making a larger polemical point about the global provenances of Romanticism and, by implication, of modernism. By contrasting this shift with colonialism’s classic drive to dominate and exploit nature, Tagore participates in the ongoing revisionary enterprise within the discourse of post-Enlightenment modernity. But the participation is undertaken by Tagore from an ‘Indian’ vantage-point, a cross-cultural contribution forming part of the hybrid inception and continuance of the Enlightenment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Alam, F., & Chakravarty, R. (Eds.) (2011). The essential Tagore. Boston: Harvard UP (Foreword).
Chakrabarty, D. (2000). Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chaudhuri, R. (2008). Derozio, the poet of India: The definitive edition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Chaudhuri, A. (2011). I could speak to her on a day like this. In F. Alam & R. Chakravarty (Eds.), The essential Tagore. Boston: Harvard UP.
Chaudhuri, S., Ghosha, S., & Das, S. K. (2001). Selected writings on literature and language: Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Datta, K., & Robinson, A. (1996). Rabindranath Tagore: Myriad-minded man. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Datta, K., & Robinson, A. (Eds.) (1997). Selected letters of Rabindranath Tagore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lawrence, D. H. (2011). Etruscan places: Travels through forgotten Italy. Revised paperback ed. London: Tauris Parke.
Mill, J. (1840). The history of British India (Vol. 2). London: James Madden.
Paulin, T. (1992). Minotaur: Poetry and the nation state. Boston: Harvard UP.
Pound, E., & Paige, D. D. (1971). The selected letters of Ezra Pound 1907–1941. New York: New Directions.
Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Said, E. (2006). On late style. New York: Pantheon Books.
Sen, A. (2005). The argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian history, culture and identity. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Tagore, R. (1917). My remniniscences. New York: Macmillan.
Tagore, R. (1922). Creative unity. New York: Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer India
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chaudhuri, A. (2015). Two Giant Brothers. In: Banerji, D. (eds) Rabindranath Tagore in the 21st Century. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 7. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2038-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2038-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-2037-4
Online ISBN: 978-81-322-2038-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)