Personality

From the Book

Personality (1917) contains six lectures delivered in America during Tagore's second visit there (September 1916 to January 1917). These lectures were sponsored by the Pond Lyceum in connection with a lecture tour from coast to coast. The essays are a structured exposition of his thoughts on different subjects. In 'What is Art' Tagore refuses to define art but questions himself about the reason for its existence'. He argues in 'The World of Personality' that the reality of the world belongs to the personality of man and not to reasoning. In 'Woman' Tagore comes through as a feminist. He declares, 'woman cannot be pushed back for good in the mere region of the decorative.

One of India's most cherished renaissance figure Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1741) put us on the literary map of the world when his Gitanjali was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. A poet's poet, he is a maker of not only modern Indian mind. Myriad-minded, he was a poet, short story writer, novelist, dramatist, essayist, painter and composer of songs. Gandhi called him the 'Great Sentinel'. His world-wide acclaim as a social, political, religious and aesthetic thinker, innovator in education and a champion of the 'One world' idea makes him a living presence.

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