Andrews, C. F.

Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 - 7 August 1941), was a Bengali intellectual who transformed his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse," he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his seemingly mesmeric personality, flowing hair, and other-worldly dress earned him a prophet-like reputation in the West. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and...