Project on biography of Rabindranath Tagore

 Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (born May 7, 1861, Calcutta [now Kolkata], India—died August 7, 1941, Calcutta) Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India. In 1913 he became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.

His early education 

His early education began at home under the guidance of private tutors. He also attended various schools in Kolkata, where his unconventional approach to learning set him apart. Tagore was more interested in exploring his own interests and curiosities than adhering to traditional educational methods...He also founded a school named "Sriniketan" for teaching agriculture and crafts at Surul at a distance of about three kilometers from Shantiniketan.[3

Shantiniketan

In 1901, Tagore left Sheildah. He went to Shantiniketan (West Bengal) to build an ashram (which is like a monastery in Indian religions). In English, "Shantiniketan" means "an abode [place] of peace". He built a prayer hall, a school, and a library. He planted many trees and built a garden.

Tagore's wife and two of his children died in Shantiniketan. On January 19, 1905, Tagore's father also died.

Death

On November 13, 1913, Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy had selected him based on a small number of his translated works, and his 1912 work of poems named Gitanjali: Song Offerings.

The British Crown gave Tagore a knighthood in 1915. However, he gave back the title in 1919 to protest the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar. 

In 1921, Tagore and an agricultural economist named Leonard K. Elmhirst set up the Institute for Rural Reconstruction in a village named Surul, near Tagore's ashram at Shantiniketan. Tagore recruited many scholars and officials from many countries to help the institute. Its goal was to use schooling to "free village[s] from ... helplessness and ignorance".