Sahitya Akademi

Tagore's Concept of Translation: A Critical Study

Author(s): Subhas Dasgupta
Source: Indian Literature, Vol. 56, No. 3 (269) (May/June 2012), pp. 132-144
Published by: Sahitya Akademi
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23345972
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 Tagore's Concept of Translation:
A Critical Study

Subhas Dasgupta

Introduction

Rabindranath
translation Tagore (1861-1941)
at the back seems
of his mind to he
when have
wasaengaged
concept of
in translating his Bengali songs and poems for the English
Gitanjali: Song-Offerings (1912). But unlike Dryden (1631-1700) or
Tytler (1747-1814), he did not write any treatise on the theoretical
aspects of translation. Unlike Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
delivering his famous lecture on translating Homer, he did never
make any such lecture on how to translate an author, ancient
or modern. Nor did he leave behind any discourse on translation
after the fashion of Walter Benjamin or Jacques Derrida.
Commenting on the nature of existing translation writings and
their tone Tejaswini Niranjana says:

"Nearly all speculations on translation exists in the form

of translators' prefaces to specific texts, and the tone they
adopt ranges from the apologetic to the aggressively
prescriptive."'

In spite of Niranjana's assertion the fact remains that Tagore

did not write any such 'preface' except a one-line confession about
his mode of translation in the preface to The Gardener2 and the
tone of his writings on translations is simply descriptive and
interpretative. It needs to be recalled here that with the publication

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 133

Subhas Dasgupta

of his Gitanjali: Song-Offerings (1912) from the India Society in

London and its phenomenal success leading to the award of the
Nobel Prize in 1913, Tagore became overnight an international
literary celebrity. His friends and admirers, both at home and
abroad, made epistolary queries about his translated works and
he had to satisfy their queries about what Buddhadeva Bose calls
the 'miracle of translation.'3

According to Jacques Derrida, "every translator is in a

position to speak about translation."4 As a translator of his own
works, Tagore is in a more advantageous position to give us a
more intimate insight into the nature of translation than any
ordinary translator. A tireless letter-writer,5 Tagore corresponded
with a large number of people, freely expressing his views on
a variety of literary issues. While discussing his self-translation,
he has made a plethora of statements on translations in general
on the basis of his first-hand experience of translating his own
poems. Some of his translation pronouncements are exclusively
self-translation centric, even though they appear to be concerned
with the theoretical aspects of translation. But most of the
statements on the diverse aspects of translations lie scattered
here and there in the innumerable letters that he wrote during
his long life. Besides, he took up for discussion, from time to
time, the problems of translations even in private conversations
as well as interviews to foreign newspapers or journals. It is by
collating his numerous statements and remarks on translations
that we can have a well-coherent idea of what may be called
Tagore's concept of translation.
The theoretical aspects of Tagore translation have not yet
received the attention they deserve from the critics. In a pioneering
article "Tagore on Translation"(1977) Shyamal Kumar Sarkar
presented many of the statements and remarks that Tagore made
on translation from 1900 to 1939. But they fail to give us a
well-coherent concept of Tagore's translation thought. In "Kabir
Anubad" (1998) Asrukumar Sikdar has referred, in passing, to his
translation thoughts while discussing his translation practices.
He does not throw much light on Tagore's translation thoughts
as a whole simply because they remain outside the purview of
his book . Chanchal Kumar Brahma is probably the first to have
made a brief discussion of Tagore's translation thoughts in his
"Englander Dikpranta Rabir Uday Rabir Asta (2000). Since Brahma's

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134
Indian Literature: 269

main concern in the book is with Tagore's translation practice,

he has discussed his translation thoughts very briefly. The objective
of the present paper is to expound Tagore's concept of
translation and to show how it foreshadows many of the ideas
and concepts of modem translation much ahead of its emergence
in the West.

Translation as Rewriting

Translation, as conceived by Rabindranath, is basically a 'rewriting'

or re-creation of the original text. Recalling his experience of
translating the Gitanjali poems he writes to Indira Devi (dated
6 May 1913):

"... I took up the poems of Gitanjali and set myself to

translate them one by one. You may wonder why such a
crazy ambition should possess one in such a weak state of
health. But believe me, I did not undertake this task in a
spirit of reckless bravery; I simply felt an urge to recapture,
through the medium of another language, the feelings and
sentiments which had created such a feast of joy within me in
past days."6 (Italics mine)

What Tagore wanted was to 'recapture' the creative mood

as a kind of aesthetic experience for rewriting his Bengali poems
in English. Again, regarding his proposed translation of his own
short stories he writes to Rothenstein (dated 31 Dec. 1915):

"Macmillans are urging me to send them some translations

of my short stories.... They require rewriting in English, not
translating. That can only be done by the author himself
but I do not have sufficient command of English to venture
to do it." '(Italics mine)

Evidently, Tagore here distinguishes between 'translating' and

'rewriting', the former implying 'word for word transference'
from one language to another, and the latter, sense-for-sense
transference leading to the 're-birth' or 'reincarnation' of the
original in the target language. Again, Tagore seems to have made
a similar distinction between 'translating' and 'rewriting' in his

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Subhas Dasgupta

letter to Ajit Kumar Chakravarty [dated 13 March 1913] which

remains the seminal text of his concept of translation. Here is
the relevant portion of the text of the letter:

"Ever since I came to Urbana I have spent my mornings

in writing out my lectures in prose and the rest of the day
in translating my poems... it is the translating of my poems
which pleases me most—it simply seizes me like an intoxicant.
To transfer to a different language what I had once composed
is an aesthetic enjoyment of a kind. To me it is the reception
of the bridal pair following the ceremony of marriage. The
marriage has been ritualized but the bride has to be introduced
to the larger community. When the guests accept refreshments
at the hands of the bride the union of man and wife becomes

an accepted fact of the world. When I wrote the poems

originally in Bengali it marked the union of the poet and
his poetry; at that moment I had no clear awareness of
any other motive. But when I translate the same, I virtually
extend an invitation to others to come and partake of
something at the bride's hand. It is happiness of another
kind.... Repeatedly, repetitively I am erasing and striking out,
brushing up and chiseling—acting as if in a frenzy. Nobody
here would accept that these are translations—none would
hear that these were originally written in Bengali and written
better. As for myself, I, too, cannot quite dismiss this opinion
as entirely unjustified. In fact, one cannot quite translate
one's own works. My right with regard to my own works
is not of an adventitious sort. Had it been otherwise than
inherent, I would have, unlike what I do, to account for
each word I use. I intend to carry the essential substance
of my poetry into the English translation and this means
a wide divergence from the original. You may not even be
able to identify a poem of mine unless I do it for your
benefit. Many of the poems have naturally become much
shorter. Usually a poem springing into expression in Bengali
comes with all the playful amplitude of language and cannot
resist a display of its patrimony in public which for her is
the bridegroom's family. But while travelling abroad the same
ornaments would become a burden and are therefore to
be left behind. Especially while on pilgrimage the glitter and
the glory of dress and ornaments are unbecoming. I am
engaged in divesting my poetry of its adornments—it has
attired itself afresh retaining only its bridal veil; it has not
turned European, however, by wiping off the essential signs
of marriage—the auspicious marks of vermilion and the iron
bangle. I cannot for all such reasons dismiss the opinion

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Indian Literature: 269

of English readers who emphatically refuse to treat those

poems as translations. Had these been mere translations these
poems would have had but a temporary stay at an inn in
the course of their journey abroad, they should have
conducted themselves in a manner suggesting an intention
to go back home soon. But readers here have welcomed
the poems as if these are their near and dear ones and not
guests.... The English language has a beauty and a splendour
of its own and my poems will also attain a class if they
achieve the rebirth by being invested with the virtues of
the English language. 1 experience a new delight because
I have this in view as I write these. I am acting under no
pressure and I am short of time in respect of any other
form of writing." (Tr. S.K.Sarkar)8

Commenting on this letter Sujit Mukherjee says in Translation

as Recovery:

"This letter is very important because it is an attempt to

explain and defend the mode of translating or reworking
his own poems in another language that he had practiced
prior to his departure for England in May in 1912.,.."9

Again, quoting the key statement ("My right with regard to...
a wide divergence from the original) from this letter Mr. Mukherjee
makes an ambivalent statement:

"We cannot easily tell from such a statement whether he

was proposing a new concept of translation, or was it a process
he was recommending to poets who translate their own poetry."10

In fact, Tagore is describing his concept of translation and

at the same time 'defending' his mode of 'translating' here. His
theory and practice of translation are often so inextricab
interwoven that while speaking of his self-translation, he is foun
enunciating, perhaps unconsciously, a theory of translation, or
to be precise, discussing a particular aspect of the translatio
problem.
A close examination of this letter will, no doubt, enlighten
us on the theory and practice of Tagore's translation. Firstly,
he makes a comparative discussion on the literal or word-for
word translation and what may be called 'rewriting' or creative
translation. He speaks of the aesthetic joy that he derives from

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 137
Subhas Dasgupta

'rewriting' or creative translation, a joy that literal or word-for

word translation cannot provide. Since Tagore cannot translate
literally,11 he follows a translation method called 'rewriting'
which does not require him to 'account for every word' of the
original. On the contrary, he rewrites his Bengali poems in
English drawing on what he calls their 'essential substance'. In
other words, he takes much liberty with the original poems
interpreting them in English following the promptings of his
creative imagination. Is Tagore's "essential substance", then,
equivalent to what Popovic calls the 'invariant core' of the
original poem?12 Does Tagore want to rewrite his Bengali poems
to capture what Walter Benjamin calls 'the unfathomable, the
mysterious [and] the "poetic"13 core of the original that word
for-word method fails to reproduce? Tagore here seems to have
summed up the controversy between the literal vs free, word
for-word vs sense-for-sense translation, a controversy that has
been going on since the time of Cicero. Secondly, Tagore has
no hesitation in accepting translation as 'a form of original
creative writing on a par... with the poem of which it is a
translation'.14 He [Tagore] re-affirms this view in his letter to
Helen Meyer-Franck (Dated 8 August 1934 ) about her German
translations of his poems: "...one forgets entirely the fact that
they are translations; one reads them as original poetry."15
According to Tagore, translation of poems ought to be considered
as original poems rather than mere translations. His foreign
admirers refused to accept his renderings as 'translation' and he
himself supported their views. Expressing this view he also wrote
to Harriet Moody from Urbana (6 March 1913):

"Rathi has begun typing my poems—I won't call them

translations."16

Tagore's view on this point has been corroborated even by Jacques

Derrida who argues that translation creates an 'original' text:
"It is productive writing called forth by the original text."17
Thirdly, he feels that his poems [read his 'translations'] need to
be 'divested' of their native 'adornments' so that the foreigners
can understand and appreciate his poems. By 'adornments' Tagore
here means culture-specific Eastern thought that the Westerners
were supposedly incapable of understanding. He seems to have

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Indian Literature: 269

compromised on the question of culture in his intense desire

to reach out to the Western people. Hence his decision to strip
his poems of Eastern thought to conform to the taste and
appreciation of the Western public. The theory underlying his
formulation here is strikingly similar to the famous categorization
of translations by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834):

"A translator either leaves the author as much alone as is

possible and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the

reader as much alone as is possible and moves the author
towards him."18

Tagore's translation practice belongs to the second category

which is why he has often been accused of 'insulting the
intelligence of the West'19 and of turning out to be a victim
of 'the politics of translation'20 Fourthly, he would like to use
the English language creatively while rewriting his poems so
that they might be a 'reincarnation', or acquire a new life of
their own in the target language.
Tagore's concept of translation as 'rewriting' reminds one
of what Andre Lefevere and Susan Bassnett say in the preface
to Translation, History and Culture (1990):

"Translation is, of course, a rewriting of an original text.

All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain
ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature
to function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting
is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power, and
in its positive aspect can help in the evolution of a literature
and a society."21

According to this view, translation is a rewriting of the

original text with the intention of adapting it to a certain
ideology, power and poetics of the receiving system. But for
Tagore, 'rewriting' is basically a creative endeavour having no
ulterior motive or manipulative intention about it. By his own
admission, Tagore is incapable of 'translating' and he loves to
rewrite or remake his poems at the dictate of his creative
sensibility. The politics of translation, so vigorously championed
by Lefevere and Bassnett here, was something foreign to his
translation thoughts. That is why, words like 'ideology', 'poetics'

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Subhas Dasgupta

and 'manipulation have no revelance for his concept of translation.

Naturally, he rewrites the Gitanjali (1912) poems creatively, drawing
on the feelings and sentiments of the original. And thus the
poems undergo a creative 're-incarnation' in the English language
and seem to come spontaneously from the poet's heart. A Bengali
critic like Buddhadeva Bose is so moved by its 'miraculous
transformation' in the English language that he does not hesitate
to call it 'the work of a great English poet.'22 The poems are
absolutely free from the strain of adapting themselves to any
ideology, power or poetics.
For Tagore, the objective of rewriting is, then, creative
'reincarnation1 or 'rebirth' of the original. He seems to have
explained this point in an interview to Evening Post in New York
on 9 December 1916:

"The English versions of my poems are not literal translations.

When poems are changed from one language to another,
they acquire a new quality and a new spirit, ideas get new birth
and are reincarnated" ,23 (Italics for emphasis)

What does Tagore mean by the term 'reincarnation' or 'rebirth'

that recurs frequently in any discussion of his translation? What
Tagore writes to Satyendranath Dutta about his translations is
worth quoting here:

"These translations of yours are like reincarnations. The soul

has migrated from one body into another. It is not an act
of craft; it is an act of creation"24

Interestingly, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) also stressed the

need for a 'transference of soul' in translation.25 Tagore may have
been acquainted with Schopenhauer's view but he did not accept
it. Instead, he interpreted 'reincarnations' in terms of 'migration'
of soul rather than its 'transference.' In other words, the message
or the spirit of the original is creatively 'migrated' or 'transposed'
in a translation from one language to another. Translation is,
therefore, a creative 'reincarnation' or 'transposition' of the soul
or the spirit of the original from one language to another. Hence
Tagore's idea of 'reincarnation' appears to be analogous to
Roman Jakobsons 'creative transposition' or Derrida's 'poetic
transposition.'26 And, again, the original undergoes a creative

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Indian Literature: 269

transformation or a 'rebirth' through the process of translation

and acquires a new lease of life. Tagore's view of translation
as 'reincarnation' seems to have been echoed by Walter Benjamin
(The Task of the Translator, 1923) when he says, "a translation issues
from the original—not so much from its life as from its afterlife."27
By 'afterlife' Benjamin means a 'continued life' of the original
or its 'survival' in the target language and his concept of 'afterlife'
here seems to bear a close resemblance to Tagore's 'reincarnation.'
Translation, as envisaged by Tagore, is therefore a creative
act which takes its origin from the unconscious or what Tagore
calls 'the subconscious' level of the mind. In his letter to

Rothenstein (25 July 1919) he reminds us: "...It is the subcons

mind which is creative."28 In fact, when a creative writer att
to translate his works in a foreign tongue, all he can do
re-create them in a state of creative mood. Tagore's inab
to do a translation consciously seems to re-affirm the fact
his translation is deeply rooted in the unconscious.

"My English writing" [read his translation], Tagore wrote in

a letter dated 12 May 1913, "emerges out of my subconsäous.
Once I mount the peak of conscious will all my wit and
wisdom get muddled. That is why I cannot gird up my loins
to do a translation. I can only set my boat adrift and not
sit at the helm at all. Then, if and when I touch shore
I cannot quite understand myself how it all happened".29

Tagore articulates here, perhaps for the first time, the role of
the unconscious in translation that Lawrence Venuti characterized

almost a century later as 'the translator's unconscious' (Venuti

2002).30 When Tagore was at the height of his literary fame in
1915, he is reported to have told Robert Bridges about the role
of 'unconscious' in his translation:

"If there is any excellence in my translations it is unconscious,

it is like correctly walking in dreams in places which it is
not safe to attempt when wakeful."31

Needless to say, this 'unconscious excellence' can sometimes

be traced in his use of the English language. As he is strongl
opposed to the translation of his poems in metrical lines, h
wants them to be rendered into lucid prose. He believes tha

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Subhas Dasgupta

the melody of Bengali language and Bengali rhythm cannot be

transferred to English and that the rendering of ideas in simple
English only can bring out its inner beauty. Explaining his
strategy of language in his translation Tagore writes to
Rothenstein (dated 4 April 1915):

"My translations are frankly prose, my aim is to make them

simple with just a suggestion of rhythm to give them a touch
of the lyric, avoiding all archaisms and poetical conventions."32

Ever diffident of his command of the English language, Tagore

intends, as he tells Ajit Chakravarty, to use English prose creatively
in his translation so that his Bengali poems achieve a 'rebirth'
in English with all its 'beauty' and 'splendour.' It is through the
creative use of English prose that he comes to discover its
inherent 'magic' which helps his Bengali poems attain a
'reincarnation' in the English language. In his letter to J.D.
Anderson (14 April 1918) he clarifies the point in detail.

"It was the want of mastery in your language that originally

prevented me from trying English metres in my translations.
But now I have grown reconciled to my limitations through
which I have come to know the wonderful power of English
prose. The clearness, strength and the suggestive music of
well-balanced English sentences make it a delightful task for
me to mould my Bengali poems into English prose form.
I think one should frankly give up the attempt at reproducing
in a translation the lyrical suggestion of the original verse
and substitute in their place some new quality inherent in
the new vehicle of expression. In English prose there is a magic
which seems to transmute my Bengali verses into something which
is original again in a different manner. Therefore it not only
satisfies but gives me delight to assist my poems in their
English rebirth." (Italics mine)33

Commenting on Tagore's discovery of the 'magic' of

English prose Shyamal Kumar Sarkar says:

"This is one of the rare occasions when Tagore claims to

have caught the 'magic' of English prose—a magic that
transmuted his translation into something which has the
ring of the original in it."34

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Does Tagore here emphasize the creative role of 'a third language'
as suggested by George Steiner in Poem into Poem (1921), a language
that is born of the interaction and reconciliation of both the

source and the target languages?35 C.F. Andrews's (1871-1940)

description of Tagore's language as 'a beautiful and musical
prose—a comparatively new form of English' in Letters to A Friend
(1913—1922 ) seems to confirm the presence of 'a third language'
in Tagore's translations.36 It would not perhaps be wrong to
conclude that Tagore must have an intuitive intimation of this
'third language' while translating his Bengali poems into English
and that too much ahead of George Steiner's formulation of
'the third language' in 1921.

References

1. Tejaswini Niranjana, "Representing Texts and Culture", in Siting

Translation, Orient Longman, 1992, p.49
2. In the preface to The Gardener Tagore writes, " The translations are
not always literal— the originals being sometimes abridged and
sometimes paraphrased." The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore,
Vol. I, ed Sisir Kumar Das, Sahitya Akademi (1994), p.80.
3. Buddhadeva Bose, An Acre of Green Grass, Calcutta (1948, rept. ed.l 997)
p. 15
4. Jacques Derrida, "Des Tours de Babel," in Difference in Translation ed.
Joseph F. Graham, Cornell University Press, 1985, p.184.
5. Tagore was a prolific letter writer who never tired of writing letters.
Visva-Bharati has so far published 19 volumes of his letters. In
Rabindranather Chithipatra: Nirdeshika ( 2009) Sati Chattapadhayay and
Debi Rani Ghosh have prepared a list of manifold issues that Tagore
took up for discussion in his letters.
6. Tagore's letter to Indira Devi; A Tagore Reader ed Amiya Chakravarty
(1961, paperback 2003), p.21.
7. Tagore's letter to Rothenstein; Mary M. Lago, Imperfect Encounter,
Harvard University Press, 1972, p.216.
8. Shyamal Kumar Sarkar, "Tagore on Translation," Visva-Bharati Quarterly
43:1-2(1977), pp.75-77.
9. Sujit Mukherjee, Translation as Recovery, 2004, Pencraft International,
p.86.
10. Sujit Mukherjee,...op cit, p.199.
11. To Ramananda Chatterjee he wrote on 28 October 1917: "This is
my difficulty that I cannot translate, I have to write almost anew."
Quoted in Shymal Kumar Sarkar's "Tagore on Translation," Visva
Bharati Quarterly.

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Subhas Dasgupta

12. Quoted in Susan Bassnett, Translation Studies, rept. ed. 1991, Roudedge,
p.26.
13. Walter Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator" ( 1923), Theories of
Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden. to Derrida, 1992, The
University of Chicago Press, p.71.
14. Shyamal Kumar Sarkar, op cit. p.77
15. Martin Kampchen & Prasanta Kumar Paul, ed. My dear Master:
Correspondence of Helene Meyer-Frank and Heinrich Meyer-Benfey
with Rabindranath Tagore, (1999, 2010, secnd. Edn), Visva-Bharati,
p.143.
16. Letter to Harriet Moody, quoted in Sujit Mukherjee's Passage to America,
1964, Bookland, Kolkata.
17. Jacques Derrida quoted in Susan Bassnett's Translation Studies, 1991,
Routledge, Pp. xv, Preface to the revised edition and in Asru Kumar
Sikdar's Kavir Anubad, 1998. Rabindrabharati Viswavidyalaya, p.26.
18. Friedrich Schleiermacher quoted in S.S.Prawer's Comparative Literary
Studies: An Introduction, 1973, Duckworth, p.75.
19. Edward Thompson quoted in Sujit Mukherjee's Translation as Discovery,
1994, Orient Longman, p. 106.
20. Mahasweta Sengupta, "Translation, Colonialism and Poetics:
Rabindranath Tagore in Two Worlds," Translation, History and Culture
Ed. Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere, Pinter Publishers, 1996, p.62.
21. Andre Lefevere and Susan Bassnett, Translation, History and Culture,
1990. Routledge.
22. Buddhadeva Bose, An Acre of Green Grass, (1948, 1997 rpt. ed), Papyrus,
p.18.
23. Rabindranath Tagore, 1916 ( interview, A Writer Talks of his Work,
Washington, quoted by Mohit Kumar Roy in "Translation as
Transcreation and Reincarnation," Perspectives: Studies in Translatology,
1995, 3-2, p.250
24. Tagore's letter to Satyendranath Dutta quoted by Kanak Bandyopadhyay
in his introduction to Kabi Satyendranather Granthabali [Collected
Works of Satyendranather Granthabali ] Ed. Bishnu Mukhopadhyay,
vol. 1 (Calcutta: Vak-Sahitya Private Limited, 1971), p.16.
25. Schopenhauer quoted by George Steiner in After Babel, 1975, Oxford
University Press, p.267.
26. Roman Jakobson quoted by Susan Bassnett in Translation Studies, (1980,
rept. 1991.) Routledge, p.15 and Jacques Derrida, "Des Tours de Babel",
in Difference in Translation, 1975. ed J.F. Graham, Cornell University
Press, p. 189.
27. Walter Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator"(1923, Eng. Tr. 1968),
Theories of Translation: An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida,
ed Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet, 1992, The University of Chicago
Press, p. 73.
28. Tagore's letter to Rothenstein (dated 25 July 1919), Mary M. Lago,
Imperfect Encounter, 1972, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p.258.

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Indian Literature: 269

29. Tagore's letter to Ajit Kumar Chakraborty quoted in The English Writings
of Rabindranath Tagore, vol. 1, Ed. Sisir Kumar Das, Introduction,
Sahitya Akademi, (1994, rept. 2004) New Delhi, p.28.
30. Lawrence Venuti, "The difference that translation makes: the
translator's unconscious," Translation Studies: Perspectives of an Emerging
Disäpline—Ed. Alessandra Riccardi, 2002, Cambridge University Press.
31. Rabindranath Tagore quoted by Rrisna Dutta & Andrew Robinson,
Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man, 1995, Bloomsbury, London,
p.349.
32. Tagore's letter to Rothenstein, Mary M. Lago, Imperfect Encounter, 1972,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 195.
33. Tagore's letter to J.D. Anderson, Rabindranath Tagore: my life in my
own words, Ed. Uma Das Gupta, 2006, Penguin, New Delhi, p. 169.
34. Shyamal Kumar Sarkar, op.cit. p.81.
35. 'At its best the peculiar synthesis of conflict and complicity between
a poem and its translation into another poem creates the impression
of a third language, of a medium of communicative energy, which
somehow reconciles both languages into a tongue deeper, more
comprehensive than either." George Steiner, Introduction, Poem into
Poem, (1921, Penguin, 1970) p.29.
36. C.R Andrews's letter to Rabindranath Tagore, Letters to A Friend (1913
1922), The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Vol. Ill: A Miscellany,
Ed. Sisir Kumar Das, Sahitya Akademi, (1996, rept. 2006) New Delhi,
p.230.

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