TENDENILLA, Sophia Lorraine S.

2IBio
“Gitanjali” by R. Tagore: A Great Literary Work

In my personal evaluation, there are three qualities that make Gitanjali a great literary work.
First, it transcends readers into exploring deeper significance within. It gives us intellectual value
to stimulate our thoughts. It enriches our mental life by making us realize fundamental truth
about ourselves, other human beings and the world around us. This quality can be seen as
Gitanjali focuses upon how divine revelation lead to a sense of reason. Tagore’s spirituality leads
toward cultivation of reason, and asserts that one of the highest lights of divine love is reaching a
condition of the mind wherein reason is in control. The messages of the poems work on different
levels of consciousness to engage the potentials minds of the readers forever. He asks readers to
dig deeply beneath the surface to understand the spiritual message. This poem teaches us how to
tend to our minds and souls to be one with the divine.

The second quality that made Gitanjali a great literary work is that the character of the author can
be felt throughout the literature. Humility, devotion and love can be felt throughout his work.
This is his peculiar way to show how he sees his subject, forms his ideas and expresses them. His
works are marked by his memorable substance which can be seen in this line: “I feel the embrace
of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight”. This line of Tagore directly reveals how hard it is for
a poet to be able to put into language the level of spirituality that he has experienced. Through
Tagore’s Gitanjali we get a glimpse of the poet’s true nature and his spiritual feelings. His soul is
embodied in his work to serve the purpose of revealing the truth to the world. By this, it would
inspire many generations of poets to lead a life of humility and self-oblivion.

The last quality that made Gitanjali a great literary work is that the language/style/diction is
simple, appropriate, suggestive and expressive. In Gitanjali, Tagore represents God through the
use of archaic expressions like Thee, Thou etc. to give worth to the poem’s sense of spirituality,
morality and intellectuality. I have noticed that Tagore never uses a capital for the first letter of
the pronouns referring to God. This may be because Tagore does not have a relationship full of
remote and awe-inspiration to God. With the use of archaic expressions, it made the poems
appear in a manner of simplicity. His poems’ structure is characterized by simple vocabulary,
highly suggestive and easy; his style teeming with colloquial idiom to communicate deep
spiritual feelings. The simple but powerful words in the rhythmic prose-poems were created by
Tagore’s combination of “noble sentiments, lofty ideas, nectarean feelings, and beautiful
images”. There’s a presence of a continuous flow of thought with lucidity of language. Each
poem has a different message to convey and adopts a different style of presentation but Tagore
unites them all with one invisible thread, i.e. selfless devotion to divine power who creates and
protects all beings.