Tagore

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2015

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. He has been called one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century and the greatest poet India has ever produced. His Nobel followed publication of Gitanjali, his English version of some of his Bengali poems. WB Yeats and Ezra Pound were great supporters. Tagore was born in Calcutta in 1861 and educated partly in Britain; King George V knighted him, but Tagore renounced this in 1919 following the Amritsar Massacre. A key figure in Indian nationalism, Tagore became a friend of Gandhi, offering criticism as well as support. A polymath and progressive, Tagore painted, wrote plays, novels, short stories and many songs. The national anthems of India and Bangladesh are based on his poems. With Chandrika Kaul Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews Bashabi Fraser Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University And John Stevens Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time for more details about In Our Time
0:04.1	and for our terms of use, please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio for.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:11.2	Hello, it's claimed that Remrinder and Arthur Tagall was at one time one of the most famous
0:15.9	persons in the world, born in Calcutta in 1861.
0:19.6	He became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, W.B. Yates and
0:24.6	Ezra Pound were great supporters.
0:27.2	A commanding figure in the Indian Renaissance of the 19th century, Tagall also played a major
0:31.9	part in India's Independence Movement.
0:34.1	The first Prime Minister of India, Nero, said he had two gurus, Gandhi was one, the other
0:38.8	was Tagall.
0:39.8	He wrote novels and plays, he painted, composed thousands of songs, and two of his many
0:44.0	poems became the National Anthems for India and Bangladesh.
0:47.8	With me to discuss Tagall are Chandrika Cole, lecturer in modern history at the University
0:53.3	of St Andrews.
0:54.8	Donald Stevens, Leverhume Perst, Dr. Rolf Heller at SOS University of London, and Boshyby
0:59.4	Fraser, professor of English literature and creative writing at Edinburgh and Napier
1:04.0	University.
1:05.0	Chandrika Cole, I mentioned the Indian Renaissance.
1:07.1	Why was Bengal particularly vibrant about the time of Tagall's birth in the 1860s?
1:14.0	Well, the Bengal Renaissance is referred to as really a 19th century phenomenon which
1:19.2	is conventionally attributed to have started with Ramohan Roy who died in 1833.
	...

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