Abstract
Tagore’s mystic or spiritual experiences are reflections of the inner light which guided him towards the Divine dwelling within. His journey is inwards, away from the trials and tribulations of the world, as he yearns for the infinite, the ceaseless, and the ultimate. His mysticism is not akin to escaping from life’s harshness. He, rather embraces life and endeavours to resolve its mysteries. Tagore exhibits his fascination with death and has glorified it often. For Tagore death paves the way towards eternity, and surrendering to the almighty is the ultimate reality who would light up his path towards the infinity. Shesh Lekha, the collection of fifteen songs, was written during Tagore’s final days. These simple, yet profound short communications exhibit uniformity in their messages to humanity. A linguistic-literary enquiry reveals that Tagore’s words, expressions, and structures in Shesh Lekha are simple, but have originated from a profound thinking and raise eloquent enquiries which penetrate the consciousness. The discussion in this paper identifies certain thematic choices made by Tagore in this collection and the diction he employs to express them. Such kind of approach could be one of several in discerning Tagore’s messages of quiet and confident nature.
Keywords: Rabindranath Tagore, Shesh Lekha, Gitanjali, mysticism, spiritualism, linguistics, Style, diction
Wordsworth said that poetry aims “to rectify men’s feelings, to widen their sympathies, and to produce or enlarge the capability of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants”. (Abrams, 103) Tagore’s poetic expressions yield feelings, generate excitement, and stimulate thoughts from a different plane altogether. His mystic or spiritual experiences stemmed from his life of inward excitement and caused emotional and profoundly passionate poetic articulations.
Mysticism remains at the core in Tagore’s poetic invocations and has been much talked about being persistent in his literary milieu. In “Religion of Man” Tagore gives his perspective about attaining immortality by realizing the relationship with the Supreme Being.
A linguistic enquiry into literary works gives way to interesting observations which hold forth author’s intent often firmly and understandably reviving interest in it. Tagore’s words, expressions, and structures in Shesh Lekha are simple, but possess profound thinking, raising eloquent enquiries and penetrating in the consciousness.
Shesh Lekha, meaning ‘Last Writings’ in English, is a collection of fifteen poems of which most were written by him on his death bed. The collection was published posthumously in 1942. The fifteen poems of Shesh Lekha adhere to Tagore’s reflections based upon his picturing of the path of ascendance of soul towards God, his romancing the idea of death, and analogizing life. He kept them simple at the outset but packed intriguing questions of life and death in them.
If read in their original Bengali version, the poems of Shesh Lekha would marvel how each thought comes to a fine conclusion before another rises to float along. Any attempt to translate such sublime thoughts would be like wading in shallow waters because it is impossible to find English parallels to supplant the bard’s elaborate knowledge of his mother tongue.
Discerning these poems from a linguistic-literary perspective informs how his choice of rich and sensuous diction and expressions announce his realization of meaning of life and futile fear of mortality. The tone and texture of these songs is varying. Though his ideas recur during the course of the collection, their treatment is novel every time.
Tagore’s ingenuity has and would always continue to attract and fascinate owing to its simplistic charm. Since he does not aim at abstruseness despite the profundity of thoughts, his writings are cherished till date. His poems, irrespective of the theme they deal with, take to a realm which render one oblivious of the present. His adroitness in suffusing an intense appeal would always remain a subject to ponder over.
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