Tagore’s literary
career spanned well over sixty years and the sheer variety of his work is spellbinding. He
was a master of all forms of writing. Whether he wrote prose or poetry, his writing was
always lyrical. Whatever he wrote bore the impression of strong personal feeling. His
lyrical manner was in line with the Romantic lyricism of the 19th century. 
He has written more than
one thousand poems, about two dozen plays, several volumes of short stories, eight novels
and more than two thousand songs which he has also set to music. From 1928 to 1940 he
produced some 2000 paintings. There are also prose writings on social, religious,
political, and other issues. There are his famous conversations with the literary and
scientific titans of his time, his numerous lectures all over the world, his English
translations and moreover his works as a reformer and an educationist.
He inherited from his
father, a deep love for nature that is reflected in all his works. He was so much in love
with it that he felt he was a part of it. His first book of poetry was Sandhya Sangit.
He compared it with the struggle of the "sleep-smothered consciousness wrestling with
nightmare in its efforts to make." It reflected romantic sensibility at work. At a
very tender age, Rabindranath felt the unhappiness of an imperfect adjustment with the
world and nature.
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 In his next collection of poems, Prabhat Sangit his heart flows out to light from the depths of darkness.
The next book was Manashi (The Lady of the Mind). By the time he wrote this book, mankind had become his subject. It showed his new-found confidence in his ability of expression. He turned his eyes from the beauties of the external world to beauty within. It expressed his anguish at the transience of life.
Tagore’s was now a mature writer. His poem Sonar Tari (The Golden Boat) was the result of a Tagore who was conscious of his skills and limitations. This poem shows a peasant reaping corn, when a man comes in a golden boat and takes away his harvest. When the peasant entreats the boatman to take him along, he only smiles and goes away. The peasant is left standing on the bank of the river.
In Chitra, we find his mysticism in a completely developed form. |
Gitanjali within a
year of its translation took Europe by storm and earned him name and fame. He was awarded
a Nobel Prize for it, becoming the first Indian ever to win it. It was with the money from
the Nobel Prize that he established Shanti Niketan. In 1924 he inaugurated the Vishwa
Bharati University there. This was his effort at blending the Indian and western methods
of education. He is remembered as much for Shanti Niketan as for his literary genius.
Gitanjali (Song
offerings) is a book of devotional lyrics whose beauty is unsurpassed. It includes such
lyrics as –‘Where the mind is without fear’ and ‘Where shadow changes
light’. "Where the Mind is without fear", is sung in schools even today.
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