THE SAMVATSAR LECTURES XII delivered by Sri Subhas Mukhopadhyay take up for examination Rabindranath Tagore's poetry and thought. Lit up by his personal reminiscences of Tagore's impact on him as he was growing up in the 1920s in a small town in Bengal, the address highlights Tagore's relevance today in India in particular, and the world in general. Mukhopadhyay picks up his favourite stanzas from Tagore to explain the poet's concept of life and death, beginning and end, old and new. Starting from the earlier poems composed by Tagore at the end of the 19th century he takes us through the poet's long journey to his last poems written on his deathbed - austere and taciturn like aphorisms.
Mukhopadhyay also takes up Tagore's prose writings and examines his response towards a variety of contemporary themes like modernism in literature, nationalism in politics, restructuring of the Indian economy upliftment of the poor, the Second World War and its destructive impact. What emerges is the picture of the complete man - the poet and visionary who refused to be a recluse and was ever alert and ready to respond to the needs of his country.
About the Author:
SUBHAS MUKHOPADHYAY (b. 1919) well-known Bengali writer, was a communist activist in his formative days. But his deep egalitarian outlook mingled with his poetic impulses would not leave him happy in the prisons of ideology.
With his intense identification with the suffering, he became a true 'people's poet'. The author of more than 60 works including 20 collections of poetry, 6 novels, several short stories, 5 travelogues, 13 translations, 7 children's books and 6 volumes of miscellaneous writings. He has been honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award, Afro-Asian Lotus Prize, and the Kumaran Asan Award, Sahitya Akademi Fellowship and 'Deshikottama' conferred by Viswa-Bharati.
Publisher's Note:
This is the twelfth lecture in Sahitya Akademi's series of 'Samvatsar' Lectures. These lectures were instituted in 1985 by resolution of the Executive Board that accepted the recommendations of the Committee set up for the establishment of a series of lectures in literary criticism. A procedure was described by the Board for the selection of the annual Samvatsar lectures. The Samvatsar lecturer is expected to deliver two or three lectures on a theme chosen by him. It was also laid down that these Samvatsar lectures would be published after they are delivered. The crucial clauses in the resolution relating to the Samvatsar lectures read as follows:
These lectures should reflect a deep concern for values. They should open up a new vistas of thinking regarding a literary movement, a current literary trend, some original thinking about a great classic or a new path in literary criticism or literary creation, etc. The presentation should be from a larger perspective while the subject matter could be drawn from the regional or comparative sources within the speaker's experience.
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