About the Book

Rabindranath Tagore is known outside Bengal mainly as the poet of Gitanjali and has been stereotyped in the West as a mystic poet for the deeply spiritual poems in his Nobel Prize winning book. But the principal driving force of his poetry was humanism. Image of women in his poetry is one aspect of this humanism, and is focused in the book.

The women's liberation and the phrase "gender equality" was not in the English vocabulary when these poems were written. Nor did women had the right to vote in many 'first world countries.'

We hear Tagore's voice speaking about women in the first phase of his poetry up to 1914. In the second phase we hear mostly women's voice, muted in a man's world, finding expression in the poems.

Tagore was a lyric poet. The flow of his poems has an abundance of rushes of rhythm and playfulness with words. His language is musical, resonant and layered. His choice of words and their arrangement are precise. These translations come close to the rich texture and sound of Tagore's poetry and they would please or move the reader.


US$ 18

11th January 2004

About Author

Dr. Jadu Saha, after his retirement from the Canadian Civil Service as a Director General began his literary career in 2001. His poems in English have been published in American anthologies and his short stories in Bengali in magazines in the US. His first poetry book, Whispers of Silence was published in Canada in 2001 and his other translated books include Songs of Rabindranath Tagore, The Flute: Selected Poems of Rabindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore - Writings for Children, Rabindranath Tagore - Portraits of Women: Selected Short Stories (Shipra Publications, Delhi).


 

Contents

Acknowledgement
Introduction
Manasi/She who is in the mind (1890)
Woman's Statesment
The Multicoloured (1896)
In the night and in the Morning
Urbashi
Chaitra Harvest (1896)
Fancied by the mind
Woman
Beloved
Stories (1900)
Requital
Dedication (1914)
No. 43
Wild Geese (1916)
No. 23
The Runway (1918)
Indelible Mark
Emancipation
Deliverance
Indian Butter Tree (1929)
The Strong
Postscript (1932)
Basket of Shredded Papers
Postscript (1932)
Ordinary Woman
Satire (1935)
Modern Woman
She Who is Dark (1936)
The Flute Player
Recovery (1941)
No. 23
Last Writing (1941)
No. 15
Chitrangada (1936)
I am Chitranganda
Notes
Index
Key to Transliteration
 

Additional Info.