Gitanjali, or ‘song offerings’ as the English translation would mean, is the famous collection of Tagore’s poetry. It’s a volume of one hundred and three poems selected and translated into English from Bengali, by Tagore himself.

In his introduction to the first version of Gitanjali, published in 1913, Irish poet W B Yeats commented on its religious and spiritual nature and wrote that the Indian tradition of poetry was ‘a tradition where poetry and religion are the same thing’.

In this collection of poetry, Tagore dwells upon everyday life and talks of things like love and material delights in a spiritual terms context. Gitanjali is his intimate response to the splendor of the universe and its deep connection with everyday life and reality.

About the Author

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an Indian poet, philosopher, and Nobel laureate. Tagore’s writing is highly imagistic, deeply religious, and imbued with his love of nature and his homeland. He has provided Western culture with a strong example of Eastern Philosophy in both prose and poetry.