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“Eighty years have passed since Rabindranath Tagore’s death and the Bengali writer never ceases to inspire people, not just in his homeland but beyond its confines. Tagore was the first truly global figure of India and his writings as a poet, prose-writer and cultural thinker are nowadays more and more scrutinised in a postcolonial light. This volume with essays on how Tagore’s poetry, religious or educational ideas, short stories, dialogue with leading intellectuals, and travel writing reached or had the potential to reach beyond Bengal, is an important addition to an ever better understanding of one of the finest minds of modern India.” Imre Bangha, University of Oxford, UK “Rabindranath Tagore has always travelled, and in his situated universalism he continues to go beyond ‘narrow domestic walls.’ This is an excellent collection of papers on his powerful and increasingly pertinent legacy.” Tabish Khair, Aarhus University, Denmark “An extraordinary compendium that sheds new light on an extraordinary man, his times, and the profound impact he had on Indian arts, literary culture, and moral imagination.” Namit Arora, author of Indians: A brief history of a Civilization TAGORE BEYOND BORDERS This book looks at Rabindranath Tagore’s creative art, social commitment, literary and artistic representation and his unique legacy in the cultural history of modern India – as a blend of the quintessentially Indian and the liberal universalist. Tagore’s genius, which he expressed through his poetry, songs, paintings, drama and philosophy, is celebrated across the globe. In 1913, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his volume of poetry, Gitanjali (Song Offerings), making him the first Nobel laureate from Asia. This volume of essays celebrates his intellectual engagements and his incredible legacy by discussing the diverse ways in which his works have been reinterpreted, adapted and translated over the years. It analyses his perspectives on modernity, nationalism, liberation, education, post-colonialism and translatability and their relevance today. The leitmotif is a Tagore who, while imaginable as made possible only within the Indian tradition, eludes attempts aimed at identification with a national culture and remains a “cosmopolitan” in the best sense of the term. This volume will be of interest to readers and researchers in the fields of literature, philosophy, political science, cultural studies, Asian studies, South Asian studies and Tagore studies. Fans of Tagore will also find this an interesting read as it presents many little knows aspects of the poet’s work. Mihaela Gligor is Researcher in the Philosophy of Culture at the Romanian Academy “George Bariţiu” Institute of History Cluj-Napoca; Founder and Director of Cluj Center for Indian Studies, Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Elisabetta Marino is Associate Professor of English Literature and the Head of “Asia and the West,” an International Research Centre based at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. TAGORE BEYOND BORDERS Essays on His Influence and Cultural Legacy Edited by Mihaela Gligor and Elisabetta Marino Designed cover image: Getty Images First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Mihaela Gligor and Elisabetta Marino; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Mihaela Gligor and Elisabetta Marino to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-11208-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-13334-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-22874-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003228745 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC CONTENTS List of Contributors ix 1 Introduction 1 Mihaela Gligor and Elisabetta Marino 2 Cultural Transfer, Rabindranath Tagore’s Travels and Travel Writing 5 Fakrul Alam 3 Travelling Fictions: The English Stories of Rabindranath Tagore 21 Radha Chakravarty 4 Du Bois and Tagore: Between Transnational Solidarity and Cultural Appropriation 35 Elisabetta Marino 5 Tagore’s Educational Paradigm and Its Relevance to Modern Teaching 49 Eleonora Olivia Bălănescu 6 Tagore and Gandhi. Their Deep Thoughts About Their Country 63 Uma Das Gupta viii Contents 7 The Mysterious Inner World. Remarks on Representation of Religion in Rabindranath Tagore’s Sādhanā, and The Religion of Man 74 Mihaela Gligor 8 “All Broken Truths Are Evil.” Rabindranath Tagore on the Life-Transforming Freedom (Mukti) 87 Halina Marlewicz 9 Women’s “Voices” in Rabindranath Tagore’s Later Poetry. A Postcolonial Perspective 98 Bashabi Fraser 10 Strangeness and the “New Woman.” Rereading Rabindranath Tagore’s The Laboratory 111 Paromita Mukherjee 11 Cinematographic Adaptations of Rabindranath Tagore’s Short Stories – Between Reality, Lyricism and Visual Poetry 124 Daniela Rogobete Index 136 CONTRIBUTORS Fakrul Alam, PhD, is Director of Sheikh Mujib Research Institute for Peace and Liberty, and UGC Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He received the Bangla Academy Puroshkar (Literature Award) for Translation in 2013. His publications include The Essential Tagore (Harvard UP, 2011; with Radha Chakravarty); Imperial Entanglements and Literature in English (Dhaka: Writer’s ink, 2007); South Asian Writers in English (2006); and Jibanananda Das: Selected Poems (1999). Other works include translations of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Unfinished Memoirs (2012), Prison Diaries (2016), and Ocean of Sorrow, a translation of the late 19th-century Bengali epic narrative, Bishad Sindhu (2017). His most recent publications are “The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore” in The Cambridge Companion to Tagore, Ed. Sukanta Chaudhuri (2020); Once More into the Past, (2020), and Ballad of Our Hero Bangabandhu, a translation of Syed Shamsul Huq’s Bangabondhur Bir Gatha (2020). Forthcoming works include a collection of essays, Reading Literature in English and English Studies in Bangladesh: Postcolonial Perspectives, and a selection of translations of song-lyrics from Tagore’s Gitabitan. Eleonora Olivia Bălănescu, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Craiova, Romania, where she teaches English and Romanian as a foreign language. She has teaching experience in the country and abroad, hav- ing worked as Visiting Professor at the University of Delhi, India, and Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Her research covers several areas across the humanities. Radha Chakravarty, PhD, is writer, critic, and translator. She has co-edited The Essential Tagore (Harvard and Visva Bharati), nominated Book of the Year 2011 by Martha Nussbaum, and edited Shades of Difference: Selected Writings of Rabindranath Tagore (Social Science Press, 2015). She is the author of Feminism and Contemporary