Rabindranath Tagore & William Shakespeare - The two oceans of the two languages

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

INTRODUCTION

William Shakespeare (baptized 26 April 1564 – died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “The Bard”). His surviving works consists of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

HIS LIFE

William Shakespeare was the son of John shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 where he died three years later.

HIS PLAYS

Scholars have often noted four periods in Shakespeare’s writing career. Until the mid-1590’s, he wrote mainly comedies influenced by Roman and Italian models and history plays in the popular chronicle tradition. His second period began in about 1595 with the tragedy Romeo and Juliet and ended with the

tragedy of Julius Caesar in 1599. During this time, he wrote what are considered his greatest comedies and histories. From about 1600 to about 1608, his “tragic period”, Shakespeare wrote mostly tragedies, and from about 1608 to 1613, mainly tragicomedies, also called romances. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. The tragedies which he wrote, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, are considered some of the finest examples in the English language.


THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN

“All the world’s a stage” is the phrase that begins a famous monologue from William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”, spoken by the melancholy Jaques. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play, and catalogues the seven ages of a man’s life, sometimes referred to as the seven ages of man: infant, school-boy, lover, solider, justice, pantaloon, and second childhood, “sans teeth, sans taste, sans everything”. It is one of Shakespeare’s most frequently quoted passages.


CRITICAL REPUTATION

Shakespeare was never revered in his lifetime, but he received his share of praise. In 1598, the cleric and author Francis Meres singled him out from a group of English writers as “the most excellent” in both comedy and tragedy. In the First Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the “Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage”, though he had remarked elsewhere that “Shakespeare wanted art”. Critics during 1600 rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben jonson.Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic John Dryden rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, "I admire him, but I love Shakespeare".



RABINDRANATH TAGORE

INTRODUCTION

Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861- 7 August 1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo religionist, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia’s first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. In later life Tagore protested strongly against the British Raj and gave his support to the Indian Independence Movement. Tagore’s life work endures, in the form of his peotry and the institution he founded, Visva-Bharti University.

HIS LIFE

Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born the youngest of thirteen surviving children in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta (now Kolkata, India) of parents Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. Seeking to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, England in 1878. He studied law at University College London, but returned to Bengal in 1880 without a degree. On 9 December 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi; they had five children, two of whom later died before reaching adulthood.

HIS WORKS

Tagore's literary reputation is disproportionately influenced by regard for his poetry; however, he also wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; indeed, he is credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre.
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, including Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Tagore was a prolific musician and painter, writing around 2,230 songs. They comprise rabindrasangit, now an integral part of Bengali culture. At age twenty, he wrote his first drama-opera—Valmiki Pratibha—which describes how the bandit Valmiki reforms his ethos, is blessed by Saraswati, and composes the Ramayana.

WHERE THE MIND IS WITHOUT FEAR
Chitto jetha bhayshunyo (Where the mind is without fear) is among one of the most quoted poems in India and Bangladesh. Written by Rabindranath Tagore before India's independence, it represents Tagore's dream of how the new, awakened India should be. The original Bengali song was translated by the poet himself and was included in the Nobel prize winning Gitanjali in 1912.

ROLE IN FREEDOM STRUGGLE

Marked complexities characterise Tagore's political views. He criticised European imperialism and supported Indian nationalists. Tagore wrote songs lionizing the Indian independence movement and renounced his knighthood in protest against the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi.