孟加拉詩人拉賓德拉納特·泰戈爾詩歌

Gitanjali – a collection of poems written in English by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore in a Screenbook read by Malcolm Hossick. The langauge of Bengal is spoken by over 250 million people living in the north east of India and the state of Bangladesh. It has a vast and sopisticated written literary culture, stretching back a thousand years. In 1912 poems, ‘Gitanjali – Song Offerings’ – by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore were published to great acclaim in a version by the poet himself in English, the language of the then rulers of India and now the language of most of the globally minded folk of our own day. Languages reflect the world as the speakers of the language see it and can be seen as barriers to understanding between nations. Tagore was driven throughout his life by the idea that all human societies, rich in their own bckgrounds and cultures, nevertheless had much more in common than divided them and it was ever his principle goal to do what he could to bridge the gaps. In these poems he adresses in a very charming and approachable way all the subtle matters of existence which make us human beings so interesting. By this means we learn much about how Tagore and his fellow Indians consider the world. Most remarkably he seems to be in perpetual conversation with – well – he never quite states who. But we know in our bones it is the idea of the source of wisdom and understanding in the world we all inhabit. Some folk need to call this idea out and give it a name – but he hardly does. It’s a translation so we, who have it in English, have to make of it what we can. Of what there is, we can only say that to be a speaker of Bengali, must be quite something.