Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
“Gitanjali 35”
Editorial Introduction
By Quentin Read
Rabindranath Tagore’s “Gitanjali 35” is the 35th poem in an English collection of prose-poetry titled Gitanjali, which means Song Offerings in Bengali. Originally part of a Bengali collection titled Naivedya, it was translated into English when Tagore fell ill before a voyage to London and sought peace and quiet in Santiniketan to recuperate (Kripalani 214).
The entire collection of prose-poetry has a central theme of devotion to a higher power, but blends in elements of love, truth, class, and freedom. Despite its inclusion in the first half of the collection, “Gitanjali 35” stands out as an intersection between every idea touched upon throughout the rest of the collection, as well as being one of the most direct in its statements, as many other verses, such as “Gitanjali 31,” take the form of parables or conversations to convey their meaning in a more roundabout fashion.
The directness of “Gitanjali 35” is not found just within the ideas present, but in the very specific choice of words. The usage of anaphora, a repeating word or phrase, with the capitalized “Where” serves to emphasize that each idea is a separate building block, and that when this construction of idealized conditions of human society is complete, then a new country will emerge into this “heaven of freedom.”
However, these ideal conditions, especially regarding the “domestic walls,” were far from occurring at this time, as India—and the rest of the world for that matter—was, and is, divided in a multitude of ways: class, caste, tradition, religion, nation, race, and language. Some of these are merely the tools of oppressors, like caste, while others define a people, like language. Tagore shows great disdain for the tools of oppressors dividing us, but shows a fondness for the individuality and uniqueness that emerges from the varying global traditions: music, literature, and religion (Tagore 106-109). Thus, while some walls should be demolished, others should merely have a door installed to share the beauty contained within with any who should seek to enter.
This highly divided and inequal world is the stage for Tagore and his collection, but especially for “Gitanjali 35” and its appeals to a higher power for economic and political freedom, unity, and the free exchange of both knowledge and art among the people of this world.
Works Cited
- Kripalani, Krishna. Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography. 1962.
- Tagore, Rabindranath. A Tagore Reader, edited by Amiya Chakravarty. 1961.
Resources
Annotations are available for this poem. To learn how to view them, please see the How To View and Use Hypothesis Annotations help page.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
