Tagore felt ”homesick for the wide world.” Further, he was constantly struggling to overcome the barriers of language. He thought that the Nobel Prize awarded by the Swedish Academy ”brought the distant near, and has made the stranger a brother.”Rabindranath Tagore, in a letter to E.J. Thompson (1886 -1946), wrote in 1916, ” I feel homesick for the wide world.”
A few years before his death, he criticized his own poetry for not being universal in expression, arguing that his paintings had rather overcome the barriers of language. It was likely that Tagore, a seeker of universal concord, would not have been satisfied in restricting himself to an audience in the colonial, undivided Bengal where he was born and raised in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Rabindranath, who translated Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the age of thirteen, turned out to be prolific bilingual writer of his time often taking pleasure in translating his own works into English It was in June 1912 that Rabindranath desired to share the English translations of his poems with his British painter friend William Rothenstein (1872-1945) in London, (Rothenstein later went on to become the Principal of the Royal College of Art).
A leather case, containing the translated manuscript entrusted to Tagore’s son Rathindranath (1888 -1961), was discovered to be missing. Rushing to the Left –Luggage Office of the British underground, Rathindranath managed to retrieve the baggage that he had left in the train by mistake while getting down at the Charing Cross tube station, Rathindranath wrote in his autobiography, ”I have often wondered what shape the course of events might have taken if the manuscript of Gitanjali had been lost due to my negligence.”
The recovered translations came to be published in the form of a book Gitanjali (Song Offerings), on 1 November, 1912 by the India Society of London with an introduction by the English poet W.B. Yeats (1865 – 1939).In 1910, Tagore published a book of poems in Bengali titled Gitanjali. By that time he had established himself as a poet, an essayist, novelist, short story writer, a composer of numerous songs, and a unique educator with an experimental school for children at Santiniketan. He underwent a number of personal tragedies by the time Gitanjali was published. Tagore lost his mother Sarada Devi (1875), adored sister – in – law Kadambari (1884), wife Mrnalini(1902), second daughter Renuka (1903), father Debendranath (1905), and youngest son Samindranath (1907) within a short span of thirty –two years. This experience with death regained his sensibilities and gave him the impetus to consider life in its contrasting realities with joy and wonder In the beginning of 1912, Tagore become seriously ill. Cancelling a planned visit to England, he went to his ancestral home in Silaidah (now in Bangladesh) on the banks of the river Padma for a change, where he translated some of his poems from their original version in Bengali.
After his recovery he sailed for England in May 1912, without any specific mission, with the mind of a wayfaring poet, primarily obeying his doctor’s advice. During his long sea voyage to England, he continued his experiments with translation presumably with a desire and wider horizon. Before 1912, Tagore had translated only a couple of his poems.William Rothenstein, who knew Rabindranath since his visit to India during 1910 – 1911, introduced Tagore and his poetry to his illustrious circle of friends including W.B. Yeats, Thomas Sturge Moore(1870-1944), Ernest Rhys (1859-1946), Ezra Pound (1885-1972), May Sinclair (or, Mary Amelia St. Clair, 1863- 1946), Stopford Brooke (1832-1916) among many others.
They were instantly carried away with the mystic vision and rhetoric splendor of Tagore’s poetry. Yeats suggested minor changes in the prose translations of the Gitanjali songs. Speaking on the charm of Gitanjali, Yeats wrote in his introduction:”…These prose translations have stirred my blood as nothing has for years… I have carried the manuscript of these translations with me for days, reading it in railway trains, or on the top of omnibuses and in restaurants, and I have often had to close it lest stranger would see how much it moved me.”While the Bengali Gitanjali had one hundred and eighty-three poems, the English version contained one hundred and three poems from ten previously published anthologies including fifty three poems from its Bengali namesake.
It was due to Rothenstein’s efforts that the India Society of London brought out these translations as a book. A limited edition of seven hundred and fifty copies was printed, among which two hundred and fifty copies were for sale. The book was received with much enthusiasm in England and the Macmillan Press of London did not miss the opportunity of buying its rights, publishing ten subsequent editions of the title within nine months between March and November, 1913. While the Bengali Gitanjali was brought out without any dedication, Tagore dedicated his first English anthology of poems to Rothenstein as a token of their friendship that lasted till the death of the poet in 1941.
Tagore left England in October, 1912 for America before his English Gitanjali could be published and returned to India in September,1913. Ezra Pound and Harriet Monroe (1860 – 1936) took the initiative of publishing six poems of Tagore in the prestigious American magazine Poetry with a note by Pound in December, 1912. Gitanjali received wonderful reviews in some of the leading newspapers and literary magazines includingThe Times Literary Supplement, Manchester Guardian, and The Nation among others, shortly after the publication of the book.The British litterateur Thomas Sturge Moor, in his individual capacity as the Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom recommended Rabindranath Tagore’s name for the Nobel Prize for literature to the Swedish Academy while ninety seven other members of the Society collectively recommended the name of novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)for the award. Initially Tagore’s nomination was strongly opposed by the Chairman of the Academy Harald Hijarne.
Vocal members of the Academy like Per Hallstorm (1866-1960), Esais Henrik Vilhelm Tenger (who knew Bengali) and Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (1859-1940), familiar with Tagore’s literary genius, wholeheartedly supported his nomination. Tagore’s name was finalised for the award from a total of twenty eight nominations ”because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.”A cablegram from the Nobel Committee arrived in Kolkata on November 1913 and the news was communicated to Tagore at Santiniketan through a series of telegrams. Memoirs reveal that the whole of Santiniketan rejoiced at this achievement of the poet.
While some students debated that Tagore had secured the ‘Nobel Prize’ for his profound nobility, others held that the ‘Novel ‘ prize came to Santiniketan only for the deserving novels that Tagore had written. Amidst this unprecedented storm of excitement, a grand felicitation was organized on the 23rd of November in 1913 at Santiniketan in honour of the Poet, presided over by his scientist friend Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937). A special train reached Bolpur from Kolkata with five hundred enthusiasts.
Tagore was led to the venue where he noticed some of his critics who had criticized him personally on various occasions in the past. These individuals were now gathered to felicitate him as the poet had received recognition overseas. Tagore’s speech, which echoed his immediate ill-feelings at the sight of his detractors, disappointed many of his genuine admirers when he expressed, ”I can only raise this cup of your honour to my lips, I cannot drink it with all my heart.” Overnight, Tagore was inundated with attention and praise made him write to Rothenstein in 1913, ”It is almost as bad as tying a tin can to a dog’s tail making it impossible for him to move, without creating noise and crowds all along.”Tagore could not be present in Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize as the first Asian recipient of the award and a telegram from him was read out at the traditional Nobel benquet which stated ” I beg to convey to the Swedish academy my grateful appreciation of the breadth of understanding which has brought the distant near and has made the stranger a brother.”
The Nobel medallion and the diploma were sent to Lord Carmichael (1859-1926), Governor of Bengal, who handed them over to the poet at a ceremony on 29 January, 1914 at the Governor’s House in Kolkata.Gitangali and the Nobel Prize set Tagore on the world stage raising him to the glorified status of Visva-Kabi, the world poet, who could celebrate life beyond any boundaries:
I have had my invitation to this world’s festival, and thus my life has been blessed.
My eyes have seen and my ears have heard. (Gitanjali, 16)