Modernism and Modernity in Rabindranath Tagore

• Authors: COQUEREAU ELISE
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper is a short attempt at examining Tagore’s concept of modernity, by trying to understand what modernism and its relation to modernity means in this poet’s work. Considering the large range of his writings, essays and novels are selected according to what I consider to be the most relevant to the present investigation, favoring the more systematic writings among Tagore’’s novels and essays. Gora, however, another complex criticism of Nationalism, has not been included here, since its analysis would deserve a complete paper. It also does not focus on the introduction of European modernisms and European modernist expressions in India from a historical or aesthetic perspective. Rather, it underline a conceptual understanding through Tagore’s work of his own ideas, and the experience of modernism in India through his Indian writings. In so doing, I try to present the important differences of these concepts in an Indian colonial context, as well as the singularity of Tagore himself in his own context, hoping to contribute to an exploration of the poet’s talent and richness of expression and thinking.

Keywords

EN

Rabindranath Tagore; modernity; Indian modernism; anti-colonialism

• Journal: Planeta Literatur. Journal of Global Literary Studies
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 3. Global Modernism(s) Approaches to trans-local / trans-cultural / trans-civilizational dimension of Modernist movements
• Pages: 83-100

Contributors

author

COQUEREAU ELISE

• University of Vienna, Charles University of Prague

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