Selected Poems

Fülszöveg

Nearly a decade has gone by since this book was first published: time enough for me to become aware of its limitations, but also to be reasonably confident that it did encourage non-Bengalis worldwide (and maybe some Bengalis) to look at Rabindranath Tagore again, and in a new way. It may have only opened the door a crack, but through that crack others have gone, writing books which would not have been written in the way they have - which might not even have been written at all - if my book had not appeared, and if Penguin had not agreed to publish it. It is still too early to speak of a 'Tagore revival* (and in any case, one would not wish the international fame he enjoyed in his lifetime, based on inadequate knowledge and many misconceptions, to be revived as such); but Tagore is now a writer whom those who care about literature must respect, even if he remains difficult to assess fully through the books that have so far appeared. When I began my work on Tagore, I felt that very... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Nearly a decade has gone by since this book was first published: time enough for me to become aware of its limitations, but also to be reasonably confident that it did encourage non-Bengalis worldwide (and maybe some Bengalis) to look at Rabindranath Tagore again, and in a new way. It may have only opened the door a crack, but through that crack others have gone, writing books which would not have been written in the way they have - which might not even have been written at all - if my book had not appeared, and if Penguin had not agreed to publish it. It is still too early to speak of a 'Tagore revival* (and in any case, one would not wish the international fame he enjoyed in his lifetime, based on inadequate knowledge and many misconceptions, to be revived as such); but Tagore is now a writer whom those who care about literature must respect, even if he remains difficult to assess fully through the books that have so far appeared. When I began my work on Tagore, I felt that very few non-Bengalis took him seriously. This attitude has changed. A fine new translation, such as Kaiser Haq's Quartet (Tagore's novella caturanga), published by Heinemann in 1993 in their new Asian Writers Series, basks in a much more receptive climate of opinion, and future Tagore books will be similarly advantaged. Bhabatosh Chatterjee's study, Rabindranath Tagore and Modern Sensibility, to be published soon by Oxford University Press in Delhi, will, I believe, achieve in the criticism of Tagore the breakthrough that has already perhaps been achieved in translation.
In the 1987 reprint of Selected Poems, I made a number of corrections and revisions, largely stemming from the helpful comments I received from Bengali readers and critics. In 1993 I made a few more. For this edition, I have changed one title, and have made a couple of further corrections to the poem 'Bombshell' (called 'Injury' in the 1985 and 1987 editions). Otherwise, even where I am not quite happy with a choice of word, or where I would do things differently if I were doing the translation today, I have left the book as it is. For better or worse, these translations have now acquired an identity of their own. They are like children who have grown up, and have gone out into the world. It is difficult for their parent to change or control them now.
To see them acquire this separate identity has been a gratifying and
7 Vissza