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<font size="4">Tagore the Unique</font></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>IT is no hyperbole to say
that Tagore is to Bengali literature what Shakespeare is to English, Goethe to
German, Tolstoy to Russian, or Dante to Italian and, to go into the remoter
past, what Virgil was to Latin and Homer to Greek or, in our country, what Kalidasa was to ancient Sanskrit. Each of these stars of the first magnitude is
a king, a paramount ruler in his own language and literature, and that for two
reasons. First, whatever formerly was immature, undeveloped, has become after
them mature, whatever was provincial or plebian has become universal and
refined; whatever was too personal has come to be universal. The first miracle
performed by these great figures was to turn a<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>parochial</span>
language and a parochial literature into a world language and a world
literature. The second was to unfold the inner strength and the deeper genius
of the language to reveal and establish the nature and uniqueness of a nation's
creative spirit as well as the basic principle of its evolution and culture.
These two ways, one tending to expansion, the other to profundity, are in many
cases mutually dependent and are often the result of a sudden or rapid
outburst.<o:p></o:p></p>

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150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Ballad
and folklore are the infant or immature form of a language and literature.
Polished and powerful language and literature develop out of that and only
subsequently attain their full blossoming. In this respect Dante's marvel is
almost without parallel. The language he used in clothing his poetry was a
popular dialect; one among various other popular dialects – this he turned into
the language of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 175<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>as</span>
a whole, the Italian language as it stood before the eyes of the world. A music
and rhythm of a great and lofty consciousness infused itself into the elements
that had lain neglected in the dust. The voice confined within the four corners
of the household and the village underwent a miraculous change in the mouth of
a magician; it became a voice of the universe. And, in a language and <span
class=GramE>a literature that are</span> not so immature but have already attained
development and elegance, a creative <i>vibhuti </i>has brought about a
second type of-transformation. Virgil, Shakespeare, Goethe and Kalidasa did a
work of this category. It cannot be said that English was undeveloped or quite
rustic before Shakespeare, although the image of the grandly real, something
truly familiar and intimate that Shakespeare evokes in the heart of foreigners
is not given by Spencer, Chaucer or even Marlowe. Shakespeare has revealed
something of the universal in the very special style he created – here was a
diversity, a plasticity, a suggestiveness, a magic all its own.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>There
is some difference between the history of French literature and that of any
other. First, the French language and literature have grown and matured not
through a sudden change or a revolutionary transmutation – their growth and
development are the result of a slow and steady process of evolution. In
English, on the other hand, the sense of growth seems to consist of a rapid
change. In the political field, however, the English and the French have
pursued quite reversed policies. The battle for liberty by the English continued
from precedent to precedent – the French had always to win freedom through
revolutions. But the other speciality of the French literary spirit is the fact
that there was no single person who had a kind of all-in-all authority, – although
in politics, in old <st1:country-region><st1:place>France</st1:place></st1:country-region>
at least, it was often one man's rule, the tradition of the Roman Imperator,
that prevailed. In the literary field among the instances cited we find that
each nation had a single person of authority, a specially gifted one who
moulded its language and <span class=SpellE>litera<span
class=GramE>ture</span> </span>
<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 176<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<span class=SpellE>by the magic touch of his own genius or made
them fully mature and self-sufficient. The French are a very social race – they
are proud to be called republican, so it is by the combined effort of many, the
contribution of more than one genius, that their language and literature have
been formed and enriched. Corneille, Racine, Molière, La Fontaine (or up the
stream to Rabelais) – they are a goodly company; among these whom to exclude
and whom to include? And yet here too, perhaps only one can be taken as <st1:country-region><st1:place>France</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s
representative spirit. He can be only <st1:City><st1:place>Racine</st1:place></st1:City>.
<st1:City><st1:place>Racine</st1:place></st1:City> embodies in himself, as no
other does so completely, the special characteristic of the French and reflects
the heart of the French people. What is that characteristic? <span class=GramE>In
one word, the culmination of elegance and sensitiveness.</span> To be sure,
this is not the only aspect of the French. Corneille has contributed to
another aspect – severity, virility, high seriousness, austere self-control,
strictness and bareness. But this may be considered a special quality of a
branch line, as it were, of the French language and literature, as if it was an
acquired capacity, the sign of a growth towards a greater possibility – but in
regard to the other it may be said that what Racine is the French language and
literature; their inherent quality is a spontaneous formation out of the inner
soul of this great creator.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.45pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>These
thoughts about the genius of French occurred to me because it seemed to me that
there was a marked analogy in this respect between French and Bengali.
Certainly it would not be quite' correct to say that the evolution of the Bengali
language was slow and steady like that of French. At least one upheaval, a
revolution, has taken place on its coming into contact with <st1:place>Europe</st1:place>;
under its influence our language and literature have taken a turn that is
almost an about-turn. But this revolution was not caused by a single person.
Dante and Homer are the creators, originators or the peerless presiding
deities of Italian and Greek respectively. Properly speaking Tagore may not be
classed<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 177<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>with</span>
them. But just as Shakespeare may be said to have led the English language
across the border or as Tolstoy made the Russian language join hands with the
wide world or as Virgil and Goethe imparted a fresh life and bloom, a fuller
awakening of the soul of poetry, to Latin and to German, so too is Tagore the
paramount and versatile poetic genius of Bengal who made the Bengali language
transcend its parochial character. I think that Tagore has in many ways the
title and position of a <st1:City><st1:place>Racine</st1:place></st1:City>
amongst us. There is a special quality, a music and rhythm, a fine sensibility
of the inner soul of <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place>. Its uniqueness is in its
heart; a sweet ecstasy, an intoxicating magic which Chandidas was the first to
bring out in its poignant purity and which has been nourished by Bankim, has
attained the full manifestation of maturity, variety, intensity and perfection
in Rabindranath. Here too an aspect of supreme elegance is found. Bengali, like
French, has a natural ease of flow. Madhusudan took up another line and sought
to bring in an austere and masculine element - <span class=SpellE><i>à</i></span><i>
la </i>Corneille. Some among the modern writers are endeavouring to revive that
line and naturalise it; even then the soft elegance, the lyric grace so natural
to the language has attained almost its acme in Tagore. To be sure, among us
Tagore is the one without a second.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 178<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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