Rabindranath Tagore Analysis

Rabindranath Tagore is a very prominent name throughout the world and it is impossible to consider India's jewels without including a marvel like him. Born in Calcutta (7 May 1861- 7 August 1941), he considered himself a poet first before everything and thus the literary beauty Gitanjali is well justified to be affirmative of his poet prophet personality. He was a Bengali polymath with his interests lying in songs composition, poetry, paintings, sketches, etc. which left an indispensable mark on the culture of India. Being such an influential personality himself his writing speaks even further though he admits the difficulty in delineating the experiences of the mysticism through words. He received Nobel Prize in literature in 1913 for Gitanjali, …show more content…
27 'The lamp of love' the poet uses one of the most powerful symbols in literature widely accustomed by all through different culture that is the light. He mentions in the very first line "Light, oh, where is the light? Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!" questioning about the light being symbolic to god, knowledge, positivity, happiness also the source of existence to exist where and how to ignite the flames to produce such light which he tells by throwing the humanly or earthly desires in fire. This philosophy pertains to the Buddhist philosophy of detaching one's soul from the ephemeral and fooling happiness of the world and seek out for the truth. He wants the presence of the god to be felt inside him and that is thus could be achieve by awakening the light inside him. He talks about the "door" in his many of his poems symbolically representing the closed doors of consciousness or his soul which needs to be opened up and that can be only done by surrendering one's will at the hand of god. His subject of awakening human intellect approaches towards the union with the god in a very physical manner where he symbolises the human soul as to be a female figure and always in urgency to meet the almighty which is its lover. He talks about the greyness of the environment and such imagery visualises the hindrances in achieving or perceiving a sense to realise the presence of the god where "clouds" has covered the sky and the impenetrable billows of the rain is the distractions of life that is keeping him in conflict. The god's presence however flashes in the thunder and leaves him asunder making it possible for him to hear the "music of the night" that is silent which will lead him through the darkness. The eternal darkness is what Tagore has presented with as a reference absence of knowledge and thus emphasising on the need to clear the troubling conscience to let the sweet melody of life encapsulate his