Rabindranath Tagore Biography

Rabindranath Tagore is one of the greatest poet and writers of modern Indian literature. He is the first Indian to win Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was born into a prominent Calcutta family known for its socio-religious and cultural innovations during the 19th Bengal Renaissance. Rabindranath Tagore were the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. He was born on 7th May 1861. Debendranath Tagore was a leader of the Brahmo Samaj. Their family came into prominence during the Bengal Renaissance. His early education started and completed in home. His father enrolled him at a public school in Brighton, England in 1878 at the age of seventeen.

Rabindranath composed his first poem at age eight, and by the end of his life, had written over twenty-five volumes of poetry, fifteen plays, ninety short stories, eleven novels, thirteen volumes of essays. Rabindranath Tagore is the only known person to have written the national anthems for two different countries. He wrote Jana Gana Mana, the national anthem for India, and Amar Sonar Bangla, the national anthem for Bangladesh.

Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, which he renounced after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

As a writer, Tagore primarily worked in Bengali, but after his success with Gitanjali, he translated many of his other works into English. Some of his famous poetry is Manasi (1890), Sonar Tari (1894), Gitanjali (1910), Gitimalya (1914), and Balaka (1916).Tagore's major plays are Raja (1910), Dakghar (1912), Achalayatan (1912), Muktadhara (1922), and Raktakaravi (1926). Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.

In 1901 Tagore founded a school outside Calcutta, Visva-Bharati, which was dedicated to emerging Western and Indian philosophy and education. It become a university in 1921.

Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7, 1941.

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