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| Rabindranath Tagore As A Lyric Poet |
Introduction:
Tagore's genius is essentially lyrical, and the lyric essence penetrates even his longer works. Even his prose is lyrical. He exhales a lyric as a flower exhales fragrance. He has been showered praise upon praise as a supreme lyrical poet by critics such as Thompson, Miss May Sinclair, W. B. Yeats, H. M Williams, Srinivas Iyengar and a host of others. Tagore is essentially a lyrical and the beauty of his religious lyrics is adequately present is the English Gitanjali-a book that will stir men as long as the English language is read. His lyrics are rich both in content and form, and they are noticeable for the exquisite blending of the harmony of thoughts, feelings and emotions-love, both physical and spiritual, beauty, wonder, and the infinite yearnings of the human spirit for complete identification with the Divine, and all these are expressed in a style that is sublime, spontaneous, simple and musical. They are suffused with the perennial wisdom of India, that age cannot wither nor custom stale its infinite variety.
The Main Features of Tagore’s Lyrical Poetry:
The main features of Tagore’s lyrical poetry are its humanistic essence combined with spirituality, love of nature and the expression of the beauty and splendour of the earth. The poet's spiritual message does not, however, enjoin on us to run away from the "fret and fever of life" and seek shelter in a hermitage, but insists on our full participation in the joys and sorrows of life. W. B. Yeats highly appreciated Tagore's lyrical genius:
"The lyrics...full of subtlety of rhythm, of untranslatable delicacies of colour, of material invention-display in their thought a world I have dreamed of all my life long. The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much as the growth of the common soil as the grass and the rushes."
His Lyrics, an Authentic Expression of His Romantic Imagination:
Tagore's lyrics are characterised by romantic exuberance and mainly deal with various aspects of nature and beauty, which have been the favourite themes of romantic poets. In the second phase Tagore's romantic imagination seems to have been disillusioned with the present and turns to the world of Hindu myth and legend. In the last phase, his imagination turns to God and explores the mysteries of life and death, of the universe. He turns to the man and the sufferings of humanity and his poetry acquires realism.
His Devotional Lyrics:
Tagore's Gitanjali is mainly a collection of devotional of lyrics, and his world reputation is based largely on this work. In it, poetry approximates to the condition of prayer and prophecy. It is a collection of mystical lyrics in which the poet is concerned with the relationship of man, God and Nature. It owes its inspiration mainly to the Upanishadic doctrine according to which the entire creation has sprung out of joy, resides in joy and will go back to joy. The all pervading presence of God is everywhere throughout this universe. And yet God is not an abstraction. He is also a living person who appears to us as our friend and comrade, as our father and sometimes even as our lover. Tagore maintains that the Infinite expresses Himself through the myriad forms and shapes of the creation which is His Lila, and relation between man and God is one of love.
Tagore's Humanistic Approach:
However, even the lyrics of the Gitanjali show that Tagore is a great poet of man. Many of the lyrics are an expression of what has been called 'spiritual humanism', of his sense of oneness with the poor and the downtrodden. In one of the better known lyrics of the Gitanjali he advises the devotee of God:
"Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet Him And stand by Him in toil and in sweat of thy brow."
Tagore accepts man to be the image of God, so God can be realised not through renunciation, but through complete identification with humble mankind and participation, in its joys and sorrows. He is a poet of wide and boundless sympathy for suffering humanity. Many lyrics in Gitanjali express Tagore's innate love for humanity. 'Here is thy footstool' and 'Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads' reveal his intense love for the poor and suffering mankind. He is a poet of hope for mankind. In a poem written in 1941 Tagore maintained that it was his humanism, his love for the suffering, exploited and humiliated, that had raised him high above the wreck and ruin of a dying civilization.
His Patriotic Lyrics:
Tagore has also left behind him a number of patriotic lyrics in which patriotism finds its truest and noblest expression. Poem 72 of the Gitanjali is one of his better known lyrics and it brings out his humanism, his spiritual realism, as well as his cosmopolitanism. The emphasis throughout is on the spiritual reality of life. The poet does not pray for the ‘heaven’ of material prosperity in India. On the other hand, he prays for fearlessness, truthfulness and unity; he prays for the dominance of reason over superstitions. And last of all, he prays for 'ever-widening thought and action'. These are the things of the spirit and these constitute his heaven of freedom. 'Ever-widening thought and action' shows a desire to shed the shackles of narrow nationalism, to breathe in the wider and free atmosphere of world-brotherhood.
His Love Lyrics:
Tagore's reputation as a mystic has also obscured his greatness as a writer of love-lyrics. In fact, his love lyrics rank with the greatest love-lyrics of the world. His love-poetry shows influence of Vaishnava love-poetry, which centres round the love of Radha and Krishna. But Tagore's treatment of it is entirely his own. The Gardener is the richest of the collections that have appeared in English. It is in the main a feast of love poetry.
Urvasi is one of his greatest lyrics, a lyric which has exercised external fascination on the mind and heart of the readers of Tagore. According to Hindu mythology, Urvasi is the heavenly dancer of Lord Indira's court, the type of Eternal Beauty, who in the beginning rose from the sea when it was churned by the gods. Tagore views Urvasi as the perfect woman-not child, nor mother, nor wife-but the beautiful woman who is goddess and seductress at once:
"Woman you are, to ravish the soul of Paradise.
Like the dawn you are without veil, Urvasi, and
Without shame."
She carries nectar in one hand and a cup of poison in the other; she slumbered till day came, and then appeared in her 'awfulness of bloom': she is of all men adored, the ageless wonder.
His Nature Lyrics:
Tagore's nature-lyrics also rank with the greatest nature-poetry of the world. He is a great river-poet and a great poet of the Bengali reasons. The forms, the colours, the sounds, the scents of nature fascinate him, and he communicates his own joy in the manifold beauties of nature to his readers. Flowers bloom at every step in his poetry, and rivers flow with their, sweet music. He observes accurately and describes minutely and precisely. Vivid and colourful word-pictures of nature's beauty are scattered all up and down his lyrics. His love of nature is all-comprehensive and realistic. He is also a great myth-maker, and in this respect Shelley is alone in his equal.
Nature for Tagore is a vast store house of images, of similes and metaphors. His nature imagery is abundant and profuse. Indeed, it is the abundance of this imagery which accounts for the open-air atmosphere of his lyrics, the very atmosphere of a folk song. He regards Nature as the primal storehouse of life, out of which humanity has evolved through the ages. Tagore believes in the moral influence of Nature. His lyrics reveal three concepts of nature—the first is aesthetic, the second metaphysical and the last spiritual.
"Pain and yearning in the heart of Nature objectively conceived is a concept that first came up in Sonar Tari. Nature pulsing with joy, rocked with fury, swayed with pain-these are not merely fleeting moods, but traits of her soul revealed to the vision of the poet."
This is Tagore's aesthetic conception of nature. His metaphysical conception of nature is akin to that of the Western Romantics and idealists. Nature is the manifestation of man's own spirit. The second and the last conceptions coalesce.
Women in His Lyrics:
Women in his lyrics have fawn like eyes, pollen and sandal wood paste are ingredients of their toilet, and they are seen milking cows of stitching garlands: earthen lamps burn in their chambers until they wake at dawn to the cuckoo's note. The Kalidasian decor is 'pervasive'. All his women have the delicacy, the charm and the sweetness of Shankuntala or her girl-companions. The influence of Kalidas on him is quite deep.
Glorifying Childhood:
Tagore, the romantic mystic, glorifies childhood like Blake and Wordsworth. The Crescent Moon is the book of children. He loved childhood for beauty, innocence, humour, charity and mystic quality:
"Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the meaning of all things; let them love you and thus love each other.
Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child. At sunrise open and raise your head and in silence complete the worship of day."
Indianness in Tagore's Lyrics:
Tagore's lyrics have 'the quaintly unique Indian flavour and taste'. In them he recaptures the themes and spirit of Indian philosophy, and vividly creates Indian atmosphere and background in the descriptions of nature. He always sings under the ineffaceable influence of the Upnishads, the Vaishnava poets, the folk songs of Bengal and Kalidas. The imagery and thought in Gitanjali and other collections of lyrics are typically Indian. The greatest contribution of Tagore to Indo- English poetry is to express skilfully and beautifully the Indian myth and imagery in English. Tagore uses the legend of Radha and Krishna to express soul's love for God. The following image is steeped in Indian myth and legend:
"Beautiful is thy wristlet, decked with stars and cunningly wrought in myriad- coloured jewels. But more beautiful to me thy sword with its curve of lightning like the outspread wings of the divine bird of Vishnu, perfectly poised in the angry red light of the sunset."
Simplicity, Sublimity, Intensity and Spontaneity:
Tagore's lyrics are rare combination of simplicity with sublimity, and with intensity and spontaneity. The diction of Gitanjali, for example, is simple, as simple as that of a folk song, but thought is sublime. The intensity of the poet's feelings is conveyed in a variety of ways. With his highly picturesque and suggestive diction Tagore creates an old world atmosphere, especially of India's classical epoch. Words like flute, lotus, vina, bird song music, sky, rich field, cowherd boy, the earthen lamp, temple, flower, fragrance, the balance, the chariot, the king, etc., are found in plenty in his lyrics. Archaisms like 'thee' and thou' convey the sense of the poet's intense yearning for reunion with God.
Music and Melody in His Lyrics:
Tagore was a ceaseless experimenter with verse- forms, and as a result achieved perfection in the evoking of the music and melody that lies in words. The Gitanjali is written in verse libre, and there is an underflow of rhythm in close harmony with the requirement of thought and emotion. The lyrics have the lilt of a folk song. They have an incantatory or mantric quality which is unique. He exhales a lyric as spontaneously and naturally as a flower exhales fragrance. Music and melody run together in his lyrics.
His Lyrics Having Supreme Beauty:
His lyrics shine like a smile. Some of them glisten like tears, some blush like the cheeks of a bride and some flash like lightning in the darkness of soul. Sarojini Naidu's diction that his songs are the Lyre of Heaven is a true summary of Tagore's lyricism. It is again as a supreme lyricist that Tagore prays:
"All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet harmony-and my adoration spreads wing like a glad bird on its flight across the sea. I know thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only as a singer I come before thy presence.
Drunk with joy of singing. I forget myself and call thee friend who art mylord."
