Selected Poems: Rabindranath Tagore: v. 4 (Oxford Tagore Translations S.) - Hardcover

The Oxford translations present an opportunity to take stock of Tagore's achievement and its historical moment. The series not only gives us an overview of the vast range of his work but is a fresh attempt to assuage the anxiety that Tagore has seldom been well translated (Amit Chaudhuri, London Review of Books)

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is India's most eminent writer. His extensive writings - poetry, fiction, drama, and a great body of non-fiction on many subjects - have been translated only in small part. After an attempt co-ordinated by the poet himself, the Oxford Tagore Translations marks the first programme to present his major writings in new English versions. Selected Poems is the fourth volume in the series. Selected Poems presents over 150 pieces spanning Tagore's long working life. They include poems on love, on nature, on poetry and art, and on social, historical, and political themes, as well as lighter pieces. Even the philosophic, spiritual, and mystical poems most associated with Tagore prove, in these new renderings, to be a varied and lively body of work, extending and humanizing the image of the august poet-sage. The translations follow the original verse-forms as closely as possible, reflecting Tagore's formal evolution and technical virtuosity. More than any previous English collection, this volume presents the range and complexity of Tagore's engagement with language and, through language, with every aspect of human life and his own times. The renderings are by established writers and translators. The General Editor, Sukanta Chaudhuri, has made many translations from Bengali and written on translation theory, besides his scholarly work on the European Renaissance. The Advisory Editor, Sankha Ghosh, is a pre-eminent authority on Tagore as well as a distinguished Bengali poet. For its size, his introduction is the fullest account of Tagore's poetic evolution to date. The commentary provides full details of origin and reception as well as explanatory notes. This volume will be prized by all students of South Asian literature and culture, and of translation studies; but much more widely, by all readers and scholars of poetry. Like the whole series to which it belongs, Selected Poems realigns the perceived contours of world literature.