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hmmitsvenus's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
"I have suffered and despaired and known death and I am glad that I am in this great world."
This isn't my first foray into Rabindranath Tagore's poetry. I've previously read the Stray Birds collection of snippets. Along with Stray Birds, this book also includes the collections Gitanjali, The Gardener, and The Crescent Moon.
I'm glad I read this when I did. It covers a lot of the same topics that I've been thinking about to myself recently - the simple pleasures of life, our place in the universe, what it means to be alive, to live and to love. Tagore manages to spell these complicated topics out simply and lyrically. Some of his metaphors may seem cliche or overdone to a modern audience, but the heart of his poetry remains the same, even a hundred years after its first publication.
Personally, I loved Gitanjali and The Gardener. I think these two showcase Tagore's strengths as a poet the best - they're incredibly poignant and simple, but insightful at the same time. The Crescent Moon was definitely atmospheric, and as a person from a similar climate to Tagore's Bengal, I saw a lot of my own upbringing in his poetry.
I think the reason why this collection spoke to me most was that, at its core, Tagore's poetry was about the nature of life. It was about living and dying and loving everything in between despite - or maybe because of - the uncertainty of it all. He writes lots about the larger wonders of life, but he does not overlook the simple joys to be found in the everyday. A lovely, light read.
"We, indeed, have leisure enough in old age to count the days that are past, to cherish in our hearts what our hands have lost forever."
Read for the 2024 Asian Readathon. Prompt 2: Read a book that feels timeless.
sarahwiltshire's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
vivslibrary's review against another edition
5.0
“He starts to play runs in Sindhi-Bārõyā rāg,
And the whole sky rings
With eternal pangs of seperation.”
♥️
And the whole sky rings
With eternal pangs of seperation.”
♥️
italo_carlvino's review against another edition
4.0
I liked many of the poems in here. I especially loved "In the Eyes of a Peacock," "Grandfather's Holiday," and "Recovery - 14." I admired the compassionate and mystical perspective of these poems as well as their imagery a playful language, but they never quite hit me like (and this might not be a good comparison) Rumi's poems did.
theinkdarksea's review against another edition
3.0
Books of poetry are never really finished. You finish your initial reading, yes, close it for the first time, certainly, but when you return to it, it will meet you as the person you have become since yesterday. Tagore reminded me of this and I know that when I slip this book back on the shelf at home, it will only be a temporary farewell until the time I am ready to read the same words with a different mind. As my time in India draws to a close, only six days remaining, I am glad that I had the incredible opportunity to read some of his work while here. Tagore's beloved jungle and bustling cities have changed a great deal. The modern world caught up with both peacock and mountain-side, but as I finish this, the sun swims with that lamp-warm yellow color and disappears behind the towers of Delhi. Leaves float waxen and green, girls still sway, bangled arms around each others shoulders, and all things go.
"The sonorous rhythm/
Of Life's liturgy in all its pain and elation,/
Gloom and light./
Over the ruins of hundreds of empires,/
The people work."
Tagore would be glad to know that they continue to do so. Beyond my window, a vendor pushes his livelihood home through the steaming, shadowed streets and I feel Tagore in slow step with him and supporting every aching knee and shoulder joint in the entire nation.
"The sonorous rhythm/
Of Life's liturgy in all its pain and elation,/
Gloom and light./
Over the ruins of hundreds of empires,/
The people work."
Tagore would be glad to know that they continue to do so. Beyond my window, a vendor pushes his livelihood home through the steaming, shadowed streets and I feel Tagore in slow step with him and supporting every aching knee and shoulder joint in the entire nation.
anendode's review
5.0
Tagore is one of the best poet this world has ever seen. His poem touches humanity through the way of spirituality.
jeeleongkoh's review
4.0
The Play of the Universe
From a deep appreciation of the varied imperfections of earth, Tagore's poems yearn for the single, perfect ineffable. The narrative poems tell the stories of ordinary people, but tell them in such a manner as to evoke that deep yearning, so that the ordinary matter is suffused with immense dignity. The allegorical poems are dream-like and imaginative, at once passive and active. The lyrics are his supreme achievement, to my mind. Ardent, yet harmonious, they map human love onto the love of God.
According to Radice, the ideas in "Yaksha" lead right into the heart of Tagore's religious and artistic thought. In Creative Unity (p. 35), in the chapter on the Creative Ideal, Tagore writes: "this world is a creation . . . in its center there is a living idea which reveals itself in an eternal symphony, played on innumerable instruments, all keeping perfect time." Radice identifies this 'living idea' with the Yaksa's ideal, with his Beloved. However, the revelation of this idea through time and space involves separation from that ideal, and thus the pain of yearning for it. Joy and pain are thus an inextricable reflection of the creative khela (play) of the universe.
That ideal is not the unalloyed joy of Christian heaven nor the dissolution of self of nirvana. That ideal is perfection but a perfection lacks the power to express itself through pain and yearning, just like the Beloved trapped in the permanent perfection of "eternal moonlight." Perfection would indeed be a torment if it is unable to enter into a relationship with imperfection. The Yaksa, beating at the door of his Beloved, is advantaged by his mortality: "his freedom to yearn is a gift from God," as Radice puts it.
A more personal poem than "Yaksa," but with some of the same ideas is one written for the Argentinian feminist and writer Victoria Ocampo who found a villa for Tagore to rest in when he fell ill in Buenos Aires. In "Guest," by linking the music of the stars to human love, Tagore puts a Personality at the heart of the universe. Radice's translation makes an alluring music.
Guest
Lady, you have filled these exile days of mine
With sweetness, made a foreign traveller your own
As easily as these unfamiliar stars, quietly,
Coolly smiling from heaven, have likewise given me
Welcome. When I stood at this window and stared
At the southern sky, a message seemed to slide
Into my soul from the harmony of the stars,
A solemn music that said, 'We know you are ours--
Guest of our light from the day you passed
From darkness into the world, always our guest.'
Lady, your kindness is a star, the same solemn tune
In your glance seems to say, 'I know you are mine.'
I do not know your language, but I hear your melody:
'Poet, guest of my love, my guest eternally.'
Is the original written in fourteen lines, in rhyming couplets? Radice's notes are useful on Tagore's ideas and diction, but I wish they give more information about his versification. The sonnet form is certainly appropriate here, shaping the matter of human and divine love. Grateful and considerate, the guest gives the Host-God the last line of the poem. The poem's courtesy reminds me of Herbert's "Love (III)" but it has none of that Anglican's consciousness of unworthiness. The universal drama, here, is not one of redemption, but of homecoming; more, of self-realization.
From a deep appreciation of the varied imperfections of earth, Tagore's poems yearn for the single, perfect ineffable. The narrative poems tell the stories of ordinary people, but tell them in such a manner as to evoke that deep yearning, so that the ordinary matter is suffused with immense dignity. The allegorical poems are dream-like and imaginative, at once passive and active. The lyrics are his supreme achievement, to my mind. Ardent, yet harmonious, they map human love onto the love of God.
According to Radice, the ideas in "Yaksha" lead right into the heart of Tagore's religious and artistic thought. In Creative Unity (p. 35), in the chapter on the Creative Ideal, Tagore writes: "this world is a creation . . . in its center there is a living idea which reveals itself in an eternal symphony, played on innumerable instruments, all keeping perfect time." Radice identifies this 'living idea' with the Yaksa's ideal, with his Beloved. However, the revelation of this idea through time and space involves separation from that ideal, and thus the pain of yearning for it. Joy and pain are thus an inextricable reflection of the creative khela (play) of the universe.
That ideal is not the unalloyed joy of Christian heaven nor the dissolution of self of nirvana. That ideal is perfection but a perfection lacks the power to express itself through pain and yearning, just like the Beloved trapped in the permanent perfection of "eternal moonlight." Perfection would indeed be a torment if it is unable to enter into a relationship with imperfection. The Yaksa, beating at the door of his Beloved, is advantaged by his mortality: "his freedom to yearn is a gift from God," as Radice puts it.
A more personal poem than "Yaksa," but with some of the same ideas is one written for the Argentinian feminist and writer Victoria Ocampo who found a villa for Tagore to rest in when he fell ill in Buenos Aires. In "Guest," by linking the music of the stars to human love, Tagore puts a Personality at the heart of the universe. Radice's translation makes an alluring music.
Guest
Lady, you have filled these exile days of mine
With sweetness, made a foreign traveller your own
As easily as these unfamiliar stars, quietly,
Coolly smiling from heaven, have likewise given me
Welcome. When I stood at this window and stared
At the southern sky, a message seemed to slide
Into my soul from the harmony of the stars,
A solemn music that said, 'We know you are ours--
Guest of our light from the day you passed
From darkness into the world, always our guest.'
Lady, your kindness is a star, the same solemn tune
In your glance seems to say, 'I know you are mine.'
I do not know your language, but I hear your melody:
'Poet, guest of my love, my guest eternally.'
Is the original written in fourteen lines, in rhyming couplets? Radice's notes are useful on Tagore's ideas and diction, but I wish they give more information about his versification. The sonnet form is certainly appropriate here, shaping the matter of human and divine love. Grateful and considerate, the guest gives the Host-God the last line of the poem. The poem's courtesy reminds me of Herbert's "Love (III)" but it has none of that Anglican's consciousness of unworthiness. The universal drama, here, is not one of redemption, but of homecoming; more, of self-realization.
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