New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-05-22
RABINDRANATH TAG0RE
Two Studies of His Life and
Work.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE A Biographical Study.
by Ernest Rhys. l?mo. The Macmillan Com
pany.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE The Man and His
Poetry. BY Basants Koomar Roy. With an IN
PRODUCTION by Hamilton W. Mabie. Illustrated.
l2mo Dodd' Mead x Co.
Rabindranath Tagore visited us in
1912, but attracted far less attention
than many a swami who had preceded
him. Then came the award to him OF
the Nobel Prize for Literature in the
following year, since when he has been
one of our best-selling poets. What
measure Of popularity the bestowal OF
the prize brought him in Continental
Europe during the months preceding
the war we have no means of knowing
at present. Certain II is that Tagore
has assumed, for the time being, SUM-
Gent importance in American eyes to
Justify the publication of these two
studies. and TO establish a ready mar
ket for them.
Neither book Is biography, properly
speaking; both deal with the man and
his work rather than with his life. eX-
cept in rather slender outline. Both
are appropriations. with no attempt at
criticism. This is understandable IN
the case of Mr.. Basanta Koomar Roy,
to whom, indeed, Tagore is the stand
ardbearer Of Indian culture. Of Hindu
renaissance, but, one thinks, Mr.. Rhys
might have assumed a more judicial
attitude. We all feel the beauty OF
Tagore's poetic thought; his mysticism
is near to us, but-and this both Mr..
Rhys and Mr.. Mabie. who furnishes the
introduction to Mr.. Roy's book, fail to
take into consideration-it is because
! Tagore's mysticism is our own, of the
West, the mysticism. for instance. Of
Maeterlnck and Hauptmann. One
must disagree, therefore, with Mr..
Mabie when he asserts that Tagore is
modern man "in whose prose and
verse the genius of his race is as dis
tinct and unobscured as if they had
been written a thousand years ago.
| . He is the man of the Far East
uttering the deepest and most charac-
| teristic thought of that ancient world
with a sincerity so deep that we can
not miss his essential message to us,
though it demands from us the exer-
! else of faculties which have become
almost atrophied by disuse." On the
| contrary, Tagore is modern man OF
the Far East whose prose and verse
show clearly the influences of West
| ern thought and literature:
The main points of his life have al
ready been made known TO us. With
the aid of these two books some, at
least, of its details can be filled in. A
man of large means, able to devote
himself to the cultivation of his great
gifts, Tagore was born at Calcutta in
/ 1861, the scion of distinguished Ben
| gall family. His father was saint,
| the founder of a new church; his
grandfather was a philanthropist, re-
! former, especially an agitator against
suffice Among his relations are num-
bered the founder of the British Indian
/ Association, the leading authority on
| Hindu music, a great Hindu painter,
and many leaders of the Hindu revival.
The poets life and work fall into pc
riods-that of his marriage at the age
of twenty-three and of his seventeen
years as master of great country es-
tate, to which we owe "The Gardener"
and the prose tales which Mr. Rhys
praises so highly, and which we are
to have in the authors own translation
next fall. This was followed by the
period Of retirement and contempla-
| tion-the existence sought by Tolstoy,
but never realized by him. And-again
/ like Tolstoy-there was, preceding these
/ two periods, tempestuous youth. "My
/ life between the ages of sixteen and
| twenty-three," thus Mr.. Roy quotes
/ Tagore himself, was one of extreme
wildness and irregularity." He wrote
/ poems of passion in those days which
/ shocked the decorum of literary Ben
/ gal. Like the Russian thinker, he has
travelled from the worship of the
senses to the quiet of sainthood." In
conclusion Mr.. Roy declares that eta
gore was born at supreme moment
in our history. He was needed in India
as Dante was needed in Italy, Shake
spesre in England, and Goethe in Ger.
many" His two biographers combine
in bestowing temporary immortality
upon him. The perspective of time,
will not be so very long in coming
will give us better balanced appre.
citation of the value and significance OF
I his work