Late-middle-aged bearded man in white robes looks to the left with serene composure.
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Birth date | 7 May 1861 | Place of birth | Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India | Date of death | 7 August 1941(age 80) | Pen name | Gurudev/Bhanu Shingho | Nationality | Indian | Ethnicity | Bengali Hindu | Alma mater | St. Xavier's Collegiate School, Calcutta | Occupation | Poet, writer, lecturer | Notable works | Gitanjali Gora Ghare-Baire | Influenced | D.R. Bendre, Kazi Nazrul Islam, André Gide, Yasunari Kawabata, Kuvempu, Henry Miller, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Vijay Ghate | Literary movement | Bengal Renaissance | Awards | Nobel Prize In Literature 1913 |
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Rabindranath Tagore (-hnsrə.ʋɪn̪.d̪rə.n̪aːtʰ, Bengali: [ʈha.kur ro.bin̪.d̪rɔ.natʰ]; , Robindronath Ţhakur) (7 May 1861 � 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music. As author of Gitanjali with its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). His poetry in translation was viewed as spiritual, and this together with his mesmerizing persona gave him a prophet-like aura in the west. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" still remain largely unknown outside the confines of Bengal.
A Pirali Brahmin from Kolkata, Tagore was already writing poems since he was eight years old. At age 16, he published his first substantial poetry under the pseudonym Bhanushingho ("Sun Lion") and wrote his first short stories and dramas in 1877. Tagore achieved further note when he denounced the British Raj and supported Indian independence. His efforts endure in his vast canon and in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to political and personal topics. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and contemplation. Tagore was perhaps the only litterateur who penned anthems of two countries - Jana Gana Mana, the Indian national anthem and Amar Shonar Bangla, the Bangladeshi national anthem.
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