Rabindranath and Cambridge

Russell had a distinguished background: His grandfather Lord John Russell introduced the Reform Bill of 1832 and was twice prime minister; his parents were both prominent free thinkers; and his informal godfather was John Stuart Mill. Orphaned as a small child, Russell was reared by his paternal grandmother under stern puritanic rule. That experience powerfully affected his thinking on matters of morality and education. Russell studied at Trinity College, Cambridge (1890-94), where later he was a fellow (1895-1901) and a lecturer (1910-16). It was during this time that he published his most important works in philosophy and mathematics, The Principles of Mathematics (1903) and, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica (3 vol., 1910-13), and also had as his student Ludwig Wittgenstein
Rathindranath wrote about their first meeting in London;
"Russel told that he came straight to London from Cambridge , just to see my father. Without any pretention he asked my father directly, "Hallo, Tagore! In your opinion which is beautiful ?" But the answer is not so easy to reply so quickly.Remaining silent for some time, Rabindranath answered slowly and explained his idea about aesthetics. Russel took  my father's explanation granted, was difficult to say. Ofcourse, he remained silent so long my father was answerisng the question and when it was finished, he left the place immediately as he had come like a storm."
Prasanta Kumar Paul, writer of "Rabijibani" remarked that the statement   is not correct.
Russel wrote Rothenstein on 16th August,
"I was much interested to meet an Indian poet,  and very anxious to hear all he had to say -- I didn't quite realize he was a very dear friend of yours or I wd have spoken of you to him."
Probably, Russel came to London at the end of July to meet Rabindranath..
Some correspondence between Rabindranath and Russel in Oct-Nov  interchanging their thoughts were kept in Rabindrabhavan.
In Cambridge Rabindranath's days were not busy, but those who had come to see him became too much overwhelmed. Among them were Wife of Francis Cornford, Grand daughter of Charle's Darwin etc. Francis Darwin Cornford wrote Rothenstein on 15th July;
" I must write and tell you both what wonderful thing it has been to see Tagore ..he is like a saint, and the beauty and dignity of his whole being is wonderful to remember ... and make me feel that we in the west hardly know what real gentleness and tenderness are..I can now imagine a powerful and gentle Christ, which I could never before."
On the same day Anderson wrote him,
" The poet's quite dignity and modesty are very delightful, and it is easy to see why he has such extraordinary influence over the rising generationin of Bengal.I am very grateful to you for having given me the chance of making the acquaintance of so distinguished and attractive being."
Anderson also wrote Rabindranath;
"Please believe that it was a very great pride and pleasure to meet you at King's College yesterday..I am very sorry my rheumatic old back compelled me to run away early, and prevented me from getting the full advantage of a great opportunity."
Anderson continued this correspondence with Rabindranath till his death (1920).
    Pearson was also in Cambridge at that time. After coming back to Calcutta he went to Oxford mission hostel and met the ex-students of Brahmacharyyasram there and wrote Rabindranath about this meeting on 17th Dec,
"Sudhir (Sudhiranjan Das) at me request sang the song you sang to us at Cambridge which begins with " Jibane jata Puja " . He has a very sweet voice and the song moved me deeply as I remembered the scene at Cambridge.
Rabindranath came back from Cambridge to London on 15th July ( Mon 3 Asharh).

Rabindraath's Ovation in England

The presidential address delivered by Yeats had been recorded in extended form in the introduction of Gitanjali.The Bengali translation of the reply given by Rabindranath against this ovation was published in "Pravasi" in Bhadra issue in the title "England-e Sahitya-Samrat Rabindranath-er Sambardhana". The reply was as follows:

" To day in the evening you have given me the honour , I am afraid, which I cannot explain in the language I have not been born. I hope you will forgive me.Though I have a little knowledge in your  glorified language, but I feel better  to think and to feel in my own language .My mother tongue like an household wife, extremely jealous, is always demanding exclusive service from me  and she does not like slightest indulgence to any intruder from any competitive side. I  frankly confess to you that I can't express that I have been charmed so much by the unending love I received since I have come  over here. I have got a lesson--though the lesson I got after travelling thousands of miles seems to me successful because though we live thousands miles apart and our language, our culture differ but we possess heart with same feeling......"
The ideas Rabindranth tried to develop in his Gitanjali are, 1. the relation between East and West, 2. the relation between the people of East and West with the universal humanity, and 3. the relation of human being with the supreme soul.
Yeats recited three poems. Two of which were published in "The Times" on 13th July;
1. I was not aware of the moment when I first crossed the threshhold of this life (no.95), and 2. In the deep shadows of the rainy July,
This was the first occasion when Rabindranath's own translation was published in "a foreign paper" .
The other one was taken from "Kheya"--Anabashyak ( "Kasher Bane Sunya Nadir Tire") On the slope of the desolate river among tall grasses I asked her."    This news was published in "Modern Review" on Nov 1912 under the head "Inutile"with comments by the editor M,R. as "This prose translation of one of his poems was one of the three read at the dinner given to Mr.Tagore in London in July last"
Rathindranat wrote;
"while replying to the toasts my father (Rabindranath) recited a few unpublished poems, and at the end when he sang in Bengali the national song "Vande Mataram", everybody rose and remained standing." He also wrote to mira and Nagendra describing in details the programme on that evening in English and added ,"Mr. Rothenstein has done some very fine drawing of father's -- one of which I am having reproduced here and will shortly send you out a thousand copies". He thoght it to be given on the cover of his book "Jibansmriti" but  that was already sent to press. It was used in the cover of Gitanjali.
He added, "we are going to-night to Cambridge to spend the week-end there. Father has been invited by Mr. Dickinson (the author of John Chinaman), But we are going to stay with a Quaker family.My father has some connoisseur there.The retired civillian James Drummond Anderson(1852-1920) was then professor of Bengali in Cambridge University. He was present in the felicitation of Tagore arranged by India Society. When he heard that Rabindranath had come to London he became eager to meet him. But as he was busy otherwise and for want of available space in his house he could not invite him. He wrote to Rothenstein;
"I hope, however, that the poet would visit Cambridge when work begins again --after 4th July -- and we shall be proud and pleased to do him honour ... There are many here who would be glad to make his acquaintance , amongst them -- the professor of Arabic, who has heard much about him, and only from me.
Having read, "Letters of John Chanaman" written by \the historian and fellow of King's College of Cambridge, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1862-1932), Rabindranath wrote an essay titled "Chinamaner Chithi". Due to his eagerness Rothenstein made arrangements for introducing him with Rabindranath.
Rabindranath described his experience after meeting  him (Mr.Dickinson);
" I saw the writer - he is not a Chinese; but he is imaginative and hence he is a global man. For two days we stayed with him and have interactions with him  always.As waves mix up with waves very easily, we too were flooded with thoughts simultaneously. After some time a professor of Mathematics came -- their dialogue also inspired me like anything.The heat generated from the discussion in Mathematics, sometimes, dried up the feelings of some persons -- sometimes enlightened one's mind. Here  the mind of Mr. Russel is well lit by the dazzling light generated from the discussion of Mathematics. Sufficient signs of delight  mixed with the dazzling light made me amazing. After dinner we used to take our seat in the garden where I met their discussions at about 11 pm in the old woods of the garden...."       

 

Rabindranath and India Society

India Society had already started preparations for felicitation of Rabindranath in a dinner party. It would take place on 10th July (Wednessday 26 Asharh). Biographer of Rabindranath wrote,"Day before yesterday from the scheduled date of felicitation, it was arranged by Emerson club in a meeting convened in the name of "Union of East and West' founded by Kedar Nath Dasgupta. Hence the primary credit of felicitation of Rabindranath goes to the Bengali's.
The London reporter of Amrita Bazar Patrika published the news of felicitation on 12th July;
" I may add that the Indian Union Society entertained Mr. Tagore last Sunday (7th July, 23 Asharh)afternoon at the Emerson Club, London, and that he received a great ovation from the Indian and European friends present. He was garlanded in Indian fashion by Miss Das and made a characteristic and touching reply."
The felicitationn of Rabindranath by India Society was held on 10th July at  Trocadero Restaurant. A hand bill regarding this signed by Rothenstein,  W.W.Hornll, Mrs. Shuldham Saw, A,H.Fox Strangways was circulated to different men of importance.. The following words were  the excerpts of that hand bill;
" MR. RABINDRA NATH TAGORE, perhaps the most distinguished Indian poet and teacher of the present generation, is in England for a few weeks, and it seems  to be good opportunity of getting together a small number of people interested in literature to welcome him. It is proposed to dine together at the  Trocadero on 10th July at 7.30 pm...."
The  rate of the dinner-ticket was 5 shilling save the hot drinks. Interested persons are requested to contact earlier with Hornel at Edinburgh Mansion at Victoria Street. Rothenstein and J.D.Anderson had been informed to join but Galseworthy and Gopal Krishna Gokhale expressed regret of their inability to remain present since they would be out of station on that day. The menu card was attached.
A detail description of the occasion in the Title "Dinner to Mr. Rabindra nath Tagore" was published in "The Times" on 13th July.
On Wednessday last at the Trocadero Restaurant there was a large gathering in honour of Mr. Rabindra Nath Tagore. Mr.W.B.Yeats was on the chair, and among those present were Messrs. J.W.Mackai, Herbert Trench, R.b.Cunninghame Graham, H.W.Nevinson, H.G.Wells, Cecil Sharp, J.D.Anderson, E.b.Havell, T. W. Arnold, R.Vaughan Williams, and T.W.Rolleston.  
From the reporting of the paper "India ", Modern Review described on Aug 1912 that 70 important persons in England were present at the dinner given to felicitate Rabindranath. The description was as follows;
"The Chairman proposed the health of the poet, and read with wonderful effect, three of his poems in a prose translation. Mr. S.K.Ratcliffe, in seconding the toast, spoke of the remarkable record of the Tagore family in the intellectual leadership of Bengal. Mr. Tagore replied in a speech at once brief and singularly impressive.Mr. T.W.Arnold proposed the toast of India, to which also Mr. W. Rothenstein spoke. It was acknowledged by Sir Krishna Govinda Gupta.      

Rabindranath and Yeats (contd-1)

Rabindranath sent the gists of his three poems ( nos. 46, 60 and 78) to them. On another occasion ( 30 June) Yeats read some poems of Rabindranath in the house of Rothenstein.
On 7th July in the evening a get-together for reading poetry of Rabindranath was arranged at the house of Rothenstein. But the biographer of Rabindranath mentioned the date as 30th June which he rectified subsequently. This date 7th July was earmarked as "international day for reading poetry of Rabindranath."   Professor of St. Stephen's College of Delhi Reverend Charles Freer Andrews (1871-1940) was present there on that day and he wrote his experience in an article, Titled "An Evening with Rabindranath" published in "The Modern Review on Aug 1912.
Later Andrews was elected President of the All India Trade Union in 1925 and 1927. He accompanied Gandhi to the second Round Table Conference in London, helping him negotiate with the British government on matters of Indian autonomy and devolution.
While working for Indian Independence Andrews developed a communication between Christians and Hindus. He spent a lot of time at Santiniketan in conversation with the poet and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore. He also supported the movement to ban the ‘untouchability of outcastes’. In 1925, he joined the famous Vaikom Satyagraha, and in 1933 assisted B.R. Ambedkar in formulating Dalit demands
May Sinclair wrote a letter on 8th July which was described in the article titled "On the Edges of Time" written by Rathindranath ;
"It was impossible for me to say anything to you about your poems last night, because they are of a kind not easily spoken about. May I say now that as long as I live, even if I am never to hear them again, I shall never forget the impression that they made. It is not only  they have an absolute beauty, a perfection as poetry, but that they have made present for me forever the divine thing that I can only find by flashes and with an agonizing uncertainty..
Now it is satisfaction  - this flawless satisfaction  - you gave me last night.You have put into English which is absolutely transparent in its perfection things it is despaired of ever seeing written in English at all or in any Western language."
Rathindranath wrote that in that evening at the house of Rothenstein many important persons such as Ernest Rhys, Alice Meynell, Henry Nevinson, May Sinclair, Charles Trevelyan, C.F.Andrews were present .
It was revealed from the description given by Andrews  the introduction made by Yeats before he read the poetry;
  " He told us how he had received it a few days ago and had kept it by him night and day, pondering over the strange beauty of the thoughts that were enshrined in song.  The religious spirit that was revealed in it made him  go back to the "De Imitatione" for any parallel to it in the West. It had, he said, besides, a feeling of natural beauty which linked it with the poets of the Revolution Period in English literature, - with Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth. At the same time it was singularly and wholly original. It dealt with elemental thoughts of life and death, of home and children, and of the love of God."
After the narration of his introduction, Yeats started reciting the poems with his usual musical,ecstatic voice.
 As per description of Andrews he started reciting the poem no.95,  and then no.22. etc.;
"At every verse the Bengal scenery -- the monsoon storm clouds, the surging seas, the pure white mountains, the flowers and fields, the lotus on the lake, the village children at play, the market throng the pilgrim shrine -- came before the eyes, moulded into melodies of exquisite sweetness.
The response on the other person in the audience had been described in short by Rathindranath;
"the almost painful silence that followed the recitation; the flood of appreciative letters that poured on the next day". May Sinclair and Margaret  Radford wrote individual letters of appreciation. Margaret wrote to Rabindranath on 8th July " I should like to try and tell you if I may what a great experience it was to me , to hear your poems They fill my spirit. I never felt last night save when I first read certain parts of our English Bible.  Andrews also explained his feelings in his essays vividly.       

Rabindranath and Yeats

Informing Yeats about the attempts of holding a dinner by India Society, Rothenstein invited  Yeats to meet Rabindranath. At this Yeats made the appointment on 25th June, " Thursday at 7.30 with pleasure. many Thanks, I have been in copious correspondence with Rolleston about the dinner." On 27th June Yeats met with Rabindranath for the first time at Rothenstein's house in the dinner. Yeats wrote Florence Furr on that day, "I do not think I can get to you this afternoon ... at 7.30 I dine with Rothenstein to meet Tagore the Hindoo poet."
Rabindranath wrote the incidence to Kshitimohan Sen on the next day (28th June), "Yesterday I had a dinner with Yeats, an English poet. He read some translation of my poetry in prose form. He recited nicely with proper melody.I don't have faith on my English knowledge but he said- if anybody says that he will improve this writing, I say, he does not know anything of literature....Yeats will edit  my translation in prose form and will arrange for printing after writing an Introduction to it."
Stopford Brook and Bradely expressed the same feeling. Bradely wrote Rothenstein,
"It looks as though we have at last a great poet amongst us again" Stopford Brook wrote, " I have read them with more than admiration, with great gratitude, for their spiritual help and for the joy they bring and confirm, and for the love of beauty which they deepen far more than I can tell. I wish I were worthy of them"
Remembering all these  Rabindranath wrote Rothenstein on 26 Jan 1932,
" ,,,then came those delightful days when I worked with Yeats ( got Nobel prize on Dec 1923),"  Rabindranath wrote Thomas Sturge Moore (1870-1944) and  Robert Trevelyan  (1872-1951),
"Yeats and Rothenstein had a Bengalee poet on view during the last days I was in London. I was first priveleged to see him in Yeats' room. His unique subject is " the love of God'. When I told Yeats that I found his poetry preposterously optimistic he said, "Ah, you see, he is absorbed in God," The poet himself is a sweet creature beautiful to the eye in a silk turban...Speaks very little, but looks beneficient and intelligent.""
              

Rabindranath and Rothenstein

By this time Rothenstein made three copies of the "Gitanjali" of Rabindranath and sent them to 1. Yeats, 2. Andrew Cecil Bradley (1851-1935), Professor of poetry in Oxford University,  and 3.Stopford Augustus Brooke (1832-1916), a famous monotheistic writer.  Rothenstein wrote, "I wrote to Yeats, who failed to reply;but when I wrote again he asked me to send him the poems, and when he had read them his enthusiasm equalled mine. Yeats expressed his excitement and described it in the introduction of "Gitanjali."  "I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days, reading it in railway trains, or on the top of omnibuses and in restaurants  and I have often had to close it lest some stranger would see how much it moved me."    

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist (playwright). Some think he was the greatest poet of the twentieth century. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. The works of William Butler Yeats form a bridge between the romantic poetry of the nineteenth century and the hard clear language of modern poetry.
Andrew Cecil Bradley (March 26, 1851 – September 2, 1935) was an English literary scholar, best remembered for his work on Shakespeare.

The outcome of his five years as Professor of Poetry at Oxford University were A. C. Bradley’s two major works, Shakespearean Tragedy (1904), and Oxford Lectures on Poetry (1909). All of his published work was delivered earlier as lectures. Bradley's pedagogical manner and his self-confidence made him a real guide for many students to the meaning of Shakespeare. His influence on Shakespearean criticism was so great that the following anonymous poem appeared
Brooke at­tend­ed Trin­i­ty Coll­ege in Dub­lin, Ire­land (BA 1856, MA 1858). He won the Downes Prize, and the Vice Chan­cel­lor’s prize for Eng­lish verse. He took Ho­ly Or­ders, and be­came cur­ate of St. Mat­thew’s, Mar­y­le­bone, 1857-59; Ken­sing­ton, 1860-63; Chap­lain to the Brit­ish Em­bas­sy in Ber­lin, 1863-65; Min­is­ter of St. James Chap­el, York Street, Lon­don, 1866-75; and of Bed­ford Chap­el, 1876. He was al­so ap­point­ed as Chap­lain in Or­din­ary to the Queen in 1872. His works in­clude

Rabindranath and Massingham

Henry William Massingham was the editor of The Nation, (later The Nation & Athenoeum), a leading British radical weekly newspaper, between 1907 and 1923. He first commented on Sassoon’s poetry on 16th June 1917 when he wrote in The Nation that Sassoon’s war poems...

‘were not realism or even poetry but epigrams (“by no means the fruit of genius”) well suited to honest rage and scorn, heartfelt bitterness and indignation. Sassoon’s other work he thought merely typical of an intelligent and promising young poet.’ (Egremont 2005).

Massingham detested the idea which was popular at the time in some circles that the war had a cleansing quality. He saw Sassoon’s work as an antidote to this and viewed it as a move from literature toward genuine political protest.

Sassoon had struck up a friendship during the war with pacifist Lady Ottoline Morrell who lived at Garsington Manor near Oxford with her politician husband, Philip Morrell. Sassoon had gone there to recuperate after being wounded. The Morrells invited prominent pacifists to stay at Garsington and this developed into what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.

In the meantime, one day Rabindranath was invited at a lunch by H.W.Massingham, the editor of "The Nation".This paper had already published a translation by Ajit Kumar of Rabindranath's "Sab Payechir Desh". This was the first publication of Rabindranth's article in a foreign paper and this was the link of introduction of the poet with the editor of "The Nation".

Rabindranath wrote in an article "London-e",

" the writers and the editors meet  at a lunch once in a week.During their lunch they discuss on several items and take decisions on the publication of articles in the next issue. It is needless to say that the writers of such a good news paper are all exceptionally brilliant in knowledge and efficiency. I was much pleased to remain present there as a guest."

Rabindranath sent the paper to Ajit Kumar with his published article on 28th June but the lunch took place earlier.