Abstract
The article is primarily intended to show the delineation of the issue of doubt and faith of Victorian time by Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold and also the attitude of Rabindranath Tagore on those points. Tennyson’s poetic concerns are presented here as a true representative of his country who had vividly focused on the crisis of his time. The anxiety of Matthew Arnold is also discussed here on the crisis of spirituality due to arrival of science. On the other hand the Indian philosophy on that matter is presented by the notion of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali:Song Offerings. When Tagore composed Gitanjali, literature throughout the world revolved around the degradation of modern civilization. Tagore didn’t attack it but he offered a humanistic solution to lead human soul to spiritual divinity pointing the futility of mundane possessions. Tagore offered the conception of ‘Jivan Devta’ (The Life’s God) is a mystic way to overcome the barrenness of the world and to lead to eternal spirituality. Qualitative mythology is adopted for the preparation of the article with textual explanation.
Keywords: Death, God, Life, Love, Soul.
Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837, but Victorian period in English literature had been treated from 1832 with the enactment of Reform Act and the death of Sir Walter Scott than basically declared the extinction of Romantic age. This period is important from literary as well as social perspective that acted as a hyphen between romantic age and the arrival of modern era. However though in some ways this period was an extension of romantic era but it’s different from this in several grounds. The worshipping of beauty of romantic poets partly disappeared in Victorian literature, it lacked the rigorous, vividness of observations having deep rapport with life. The stable belief in nature of Wordsworth , Shelley’s immense feelings in art, truth in beauty and love of Keats were not found in that period. Though Pre-Raphaelite group (1848) attempted to reiterate the notion of Keats but it was artificial somehow that couldn’t offer the lively touch. Moreover a sense of depression, dejection, doubt, hopelessness, disbelief, restlessness, anxiety had been found in the literary exponents of the time. Except Robert Browning, others were confined within the turmoil of their time that’s why they couldn’t offer universal truth and love.
Materialistic or industrial development was the predominant feature of Victorian period. The new commercial energy was reflected in the Great Exhibition of 1851. Apart from this, Britain enhanced it’s colonies broadly throughout the world increasing their global treading. As the Reform Act (1832) offered power to the merchant class new industries, mills were founded. The invention of stream engine made the transport system very easy. Consequently, in the hope of getting job people from village gathered in the towns as labourers. But insufficient wages turned their life as a machinery one, even the women and children were engaged in factories. The condition of lodging, medical treatment was tremendously poor. Corruption had captured the sections of law, administration, bureaucracy , education. Those were adopted by Charles Dickens as the main theme of his novels. It had immense effect upon literature as freedom of imagination and materialistic development can’t go side by side. The machinery system of earning money is not suitable to understand the living impulse of human life and its association with nature. There were clash of two different sides of every discursive and scholarly disciples that’s normally called Victorian doubt. The conflict between science and religion is the most important issue in this regard. Science didn’t accept any traditional belief unless and until it’s tested on investigation that shook the root of bondage between human and God. Charles Darwin with the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859) denied the divine intervention in the creation of life. The dispute between democracy and aristocracy hampered the public and literary life also. The Reform Act, 1832 didn’t offer right to mass people rather it empowered the upper middle merchant class who were the new form of aristocracy. When the growth of industrial revolution aided by aristocratic class had been flourished, the demand of democratic right for everybody was also originated. Most of the litterateurs, polymaths were affected by those clash between doubt and faith. Lord Alfred Tennyson is called ‘Victorian Compromise’ as in spite of believing in spirituality and beauty he didn’t deny fully the existence of science. He took a middle position as the bridge between conventional doctrines and the message of upcoming modernism. Robert Browning belonged to a different pattern who kept himself aside from the Victorian questions. His neutral soul dived into the complex human psychology, spirituality, youth and love. However Matthew Arnold was heavily offended for the decaying of spiritual virtues with the arrival of science. Poetry appeared to him as the ‘criticism of life’ where he depicted the agonies of his restless soul, that’s why he is called the ‘Victorian unrest’.
Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was the representation poet of Victorian period in whose compositions the features of the age got reflected. He was a talented man from the childhood and during the university days in Cambridge he was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold medal for the poem Timbuctoo. The remaining of his literary career is one of the outstanding instances of the world. Notable of his works are The Lady of Shalott and Other Poems (1833) including The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, The Two Vioces, English Idylls and Other Poems (1842) including Morte d’ Arthur, Dora, Ulisses, Locksley Hall, Break, Break, Break. Other notable pieces are The Princes (1847), Maud, A Monodrama (1855), Idylls of the King (1859-89). But the most important literary output of Tennyson’s career is In memoriam (1850) that’s a collection of 131 sectional poems and an epilogue written during 1833-1850, an elegy due to death of his college friend Arthur Henry Hallam. The tremendous impact of the poem upon the royal patronages as well as public offered him the prestigious Poet Laureateship in 1850.
In Memoriam is not only a piece of literature but the authentic mirror where the attitude towards life of Tennyson and also his time got reflected. It’s not a general elegy but the outcome of loss, depression and agony and the consciousness of Tennyson’s soul for the death of Hallam. Though Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species before the publication of In Memoriam but the scientific inventions were started from the beginning of nineteenth century. Important among these are Natural History (1749-) of Comte-de-Buffon, A New System of Chemical Philosophy of John Dulton (1808), Principles of Geology (1830-33) of Charles Lyell, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) by Robert Chambers , Lyell's Elements of Geology (1838), Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863) , The Physical Geography of the Sea (1855) of Matthew Fontaine Maury. However, the French scholar Pierre-Simon Laplace had tremendously contributed in this field who invented ‘Nebular Hypothesis’ theory. This doctrine depicted that the universe was earlier a nebula of gas . After it’s pacification the planets were created and were started to be cold, at last it took the modern shape. Laplace denied the role of god in creation of cosmos and its lives. His Exposition Du Système Du Monde (The System of the World, 1809) is remarkable in this regard.
In the beginning of In Memoriam, Tennyson was in conflict between doubt and faith on Christianity or spirituality for the premature death of his friend. His anxious soul was wondered by the arrival of science but at the same time he was appalled by Nature that attempted to deviate him from the path of religion. His soul was wandering in an aimless darkness while he blamed the nature for snatching the young life of Hallam. He thought that if this terrible nature is created by God then he was too hostile. It was the infidelity of the Almighty towards mankind as Tennyson’s tortured soul cried, “Thou madest Death; and lo,thy foot/ Is on the skull which thou hast made” (Pearce, 1912,p.1). He appealed to the Nature not to hurt him. The revolutionary ideas of science devastated the immortality of soul that offered more grief to Tennyson’s for his loss of friend. His optimism in the Christmas of the cycle of life from gloomy to happy state in connection with winter to spring reminded the reader the eternal question of P.B. Shelley in Ode to the West Wind (1820), “If winter comes can spring be far behind?” But Nature made the contradiction in the poet that’s what he asked the question, “what am I” and received a heartless offending answer:
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying in the light:
And with no language but a cry. (Pearce, 1912, p.66)
This doubt tried to make him understood that God didn’t take care of everybody individually. As both the God and nature are involved in taking human’s life, are they both adverse to men? The poet said, “I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,/ And gather dust and chaff” (Pearce, 1912, p.68) . The nature in challenging tone hypothesized that mankind would be destroyed in future and so that human life is short and futile, nothing is immortal, all are under the destruction of time. It shattered the established believe of Tennyson as he got puzzled saying, “I falter where I firmly trod” (Pearce, 1912, p.67). The notion of decaying mankind inserted disbelieve in his soul on the law and love of God who had destroyed so many races. The existence of fossils of the extinct animals supported the fear of the poet . Nature told him that it only controlled the biological life of human and there is no other question of the eternal form of the soul and so life ends with death. Even nature created doubt in worshipping of divine power as God had no interest regarding the worshipping of men. It asked question in poet’s soul regarding the authenticity of God’s creation and love. Tennyson was anxious about the fruitlessness of action, struggle and affairs of human life as he doubted:
Who loved, who suffered countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or sealed within the iron hills? (Pearce, 1912, p.69).
Apart from this in another few instances Tennyson being provoked by the theories of science accepted the scientific explanation of creation of our universe as he said, “There where the long streets roars, hath been/ The stillness of the central sea” (Pearce, 1912, p.164). Here Tennyson accepted the ‘nebular hypothesis’ of Laplace in the poem as “there rolls the deep where grew the tree” (Pearce, 1912, p.164).
However, like The Waste Land, Tennyson had resolved all of his doubts and anxieties in course of the poem. He realized that reason should not be the only way of explanation but the human soul might be given prominence. He could meet with his dead friend Hallam who belonged to a different world. The union of the dead and living soul supported the eternity of human soul and overruled the arguments of Nature. He was exited in pleasure saying, “ But the spirit himself may come? When all the nerve of sense is numb? Spirit to spirit, Ghost to Ghost” (Pearce, 1912, p.119). It had upgraded the way of spiritual unification as the reply of skepticism. The poet overcame the temptations of all disbelieves and declared “I have felt"(Pearce, 1912, p.165) that the poet understood the mystery of creation and the feelings of divinity. Life was not to him the game of magnet but it’s the play of “son of God, immortal love” (Pearce, 1912, p.1). This believe is asserted by the voice of the poet as , “Love is and was my Lord, and King/ And in his presence I attend/ To hear the tidings of my friends” (Pearce, 1912, p.167). He realized the existence of his friend in rising and departing Sun, star, flowers as he was then strengthened by divine endless power, Even Hallam didn’t lose his personal identities. He approved the existence of a single god, law, spirituality as he asserted that:
That God, which ever lives and loves
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves. ” (Pearce, 1912, p.182)
Tennyson believed that good will come at last out of evil as Hallam was also in doubt but he had gone ultimately to eternity, so there is also a way to reach faith from doubt. In a dream the poet realized the space between life and death that’s like a ferry from the mundane world to the next while the hope and goodwill would be the co-passengers. Love is the chief component that connects everything in a single self.
Tennyson also mingles the question of science and religion in a rational way. In section 118 he introduced the arguments of the scientists that the earth was a liquid at the beginning and it took the present shape in course of time. The poet thought that if it’s a continuous process then man is not the last product of creation. It’s the duty of mankind to upgrade their qualities before the arrival of a superior race. It’s a chance before them that life is not a useless, workless pastime. Like a piece of iron human life may be fruitful after being dripped in bath by tears and being beaten by shocks of fortune. It will distinguish men from the other animals. Then the beastly instincts of human life would be vanished with a spiritual emancipation. Even in the epilogue section he imagined his friend Hallam as the specimen of the upcoming race of higher merit. Thus he resolved the doubts of scientific question in poetic way having deep faith in divinity and spirituality. His position in Victorian literature as well as society was treated by H.W. Long as:
In reflecting the restless spirit of the progressive age Tennyson is as remarkable as Pope was in voicing the artificiality of the early eighteenth century. As a poet, therefore, he expresses not so much a personal as well as a national spirit; he is probably the most representative literary man of the Victorian era.(Long,1919,p.458)
Apart from Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) was a leading literary personality of Victorian Britain who deserved a separate position. Though he followed Wordsworth in his treatment of nature but in delineation of love his contribution is distinct. He replaced the excitement, revolt or unruliness in love of Romantic poets with dejection , depression, separation of lover-poetic soul. He was not satisfied with the materialistic growth both in economic and humanistic sense of his time. His ‘unrest’ soul searched the remedy of the decayed spiritualism throughout his life. Some notable of his collections are The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems (1840), Empedocles on Etna (1852,1867) containing Sohard and Rustum, The Scholar Gipsy, New Poems (1867) including Thyrsis, Rugby Chapel, Dover Beach, A Southern Night.
Dover Beach is the most acclaimed poem of Arnold that’s basically a representative piece of the poet’s voice. Though it was published in the collection of New Poems, 1867 but some scholarly notes depicted that it was written most probably in 1851 when Tennyson had just published In Memoriam (1850). Arnold composed the poem when Oxford Movement, Chartist movement, Scientific discoveries had already taken place. A skeptical out looking covered the Victorian ambience that questioned on the authenticity of church and bible. Arnold wrote Dover Beach on this perspective that presents his observation on the shore of Dover in a night in a figurative sense. The description was beautiful with the full moon shining on the waves with roaring sounds that attracted the poet immensely. Its pleasure provoked him to recall the ancient days when Greek dramatist Sophocles heard the same sound by the coast of Aegean. Arnold lamented seeing the full tide of Dover comparing it with the tide of religious belief of English people in earlier era. But in present situation there is ebb in human mind on spiritual deliberation. Just like the ebb uncovers the naked muddy, stony shore human doubt about spiritual existence exposed the ugliness of life without any divine touch.
Though Arnold visited Dover with his wife but no romantic attitude towards love is captured by the poet in this poem, rather it served as an elegiac dirge for the extinction of faith in spiritual love. The industrial development and science had subdued it. But only in two lines he offered a ray of hope against the destruction of faith addressing to his wife, “Ah, love, let us be true/ To one another”(Hale, 1908,p.44). Here he is akin to Browning who presented love as the remedy of all mental anguish and defeat. Arnold also thought that fidelity in love may offer solace to the anguished souls of human being. as Victorian society lacked the joy and conjugal pleasure. However, Arnold was not overwhelmed with his optimized love as at the end of the poem, he adopted suggestive metaphor as a warning to mankind for their present gloomy state. He remarked that:
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. (Hale, 1908,p.44).
Here ‘we’ doesn’t only imply the poet and his beloved but the entire human race that enhanced the appeal and applicability of the poem. Human life in the earth is an ignorant one as they fight with each other without knowing its purpose. The ‘darkling plain’ indicates the sufferings and agonies of our life. Such type of attitude to Arnold got also reflected in his letters. For instance his letter to Arthur Clough may be mentioned here that clarifies his position:
My dearest Clough—these are damned times- everything is against one- the height to which knowledge is come, the spread of luxury, our physical enervation, the absence of the great natures, the unavoidable contact with millions of small ones…Only let us pray all the time—God keep us both from aridity. Arid that is what the times are. (Alexander, 1973, p.62)
In several other poems Arnold depicted his hopelessness for the decency of the essence of human life. To Marguerite: Continued is such a type of poem that was published in Empedocles on Etna (1852) having the title ‘To Marguerite’. In the beginning of the poem the poem compared human life with island to refer to the distinctness and described the separation as "We mortal millions live alone." It conveys the bitter solitariness of human life to live alone in the society. Arnold’s poetic persona was agonized observing the lack of human connection in Victorian life. He compared life with a island while many other islands are singing in a tone on the sea to make a harmony that indicates their willingness to be united. The poet wished for a togetherness among all people that is disjointed now. He reminded the reader the human solidarity in the ancient days saying,
…we were
Parts of a single continent!
Now round us spreads the watery plain —
Oh might our marges meet again! (Garret, 1986, p.147)
The poet’s tortured soul rebelled against the mechanic-science throughout his career for remove in religious, spiritual belief and confidence of love, compassion in mankind, but in the ending portion of this poem Arnold rebelled against God for not performing the appropriate role in present time like the ancient periods. Only God can unite people from all sort of deviation but Almighty is not intended to do so, that’s why peace from the world had been captured by science. The last line of the poem is highly suggestive as he presented sea as “unplumbed, salt, estranging” (Garret, 1986, p.147) to protest against the divine wish to separate men from each other without knowing themselves. It would totally disconnect the people decreasing the humanistic love. Arnold’s position on the Victorian time in comparison of the attitude of his fellow poets was rightly determined by R.H. Hutton as he observed that:
When I come to ask what Mr. Arnold’s poetry has done for this generation, the answer must be that no one has expressed more powerfully and poetically its spiritual weakness, its craving for a passion it cannot feel, its admiration for a self-mastery that it cannot achieve , its desire for a creed that it fails to accept, its sympathy with a faith that it will not share, its aspiration for a peace that it does not know. (Ferry, 2001, p.144)
The conception of making scholarly bridge between East and West was originated initially from the nineteenth century but got highly flourished in the twentieth century literary, cultural, artistic, critical studies. After Second World War, in the Post-colonial period of former colonized new independent countries in Asia it became one of the most important point of research that was provoked by Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978). The literary and artistic enrichment of East was globally focused when Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913 as the first Asian recipient. He was awarded this for Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), a collection of 103 poems. Tagore spent half of his life in nineteenth and half in twentieth century. Living in a colonized country he witnessed the depression, agony, anxiety and also the movement against British colonizers. Having travelled several countries he believed in a cosmopolitan view and was intended to make a bridge between East and West. Tagore was middle aged when the Victorian period was ceased in Britain and Edwardian era was started. He was often called ‘gurudev’ (the mystic master) of ‘Kaviguru’ (the master of poets) by his followers for his mystic deliberation that surpassed his identity as a poet. Tagore offered humanitarian, spiritual message blended with love before the anxious world in face of World War. The problems created in connection with the Victorian doubt, clash between science and religion, loss of humanism, love, pain of separation somehow got proper remedy by the hands of Tagore. In Gitanjali his delineation of divinity, spirituality, birth, death, nature, union, love, compassion was on the one hand the reply of all ambiguities of the bygone Victorian scholars and a hypothesis of solutions for the entire world in the ambience of World War and anxiety of modernism.
In song no 9, Tagore thought that it’s foolish for men to carry the burden of agonies and anxieties of our life as we should put it under the hands of God with immense fidelity. The God carries the load of the entire universe so that everybody would be safe under his hands as the poet appealed that:
“O FOOL, TO TRY to carry thyself upon
thy own shoulders! O beggar, to come
to beg at thy own door!
Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all,
and never look behind in regret (Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013, p.49)
This belief in Almighty overruled the doubt in Tennyson’s mind provoked by Nature that God doesn’t take care individually. Tagore vested human life to divine master who would do the best. A human soul is capable to accept the gift of God when it renounces all mundane desires. In Song no 21, The poem treated himself as lover of beloved God who had waited so many years for reunion with the divine. At last he heard the voice calling him from a boat and he wished to sail on it. This is the symbolic representation of the river as the vast eternity beyond which the god is waiting for men. The boat refers to death that’s the ending of mundane life and beginning of spiritual companionship with the God. The flute sound is the divine announcement of ending of earthly love as Tagore said:
What emptiness do you gaze upon!
Do you not feel a thrill passing through
the air with the notes of the far away
song floating from the other shore? ((Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013,p.76)
Rabindranath asserted the theory of renewal of life through death by divine intervention in song no 25. The supreme power will purify our life if we surrender fully to his hands. At the end of the life the tired soul of the poet longed for sleep that is basically death and in this situation noting but faith in God is needed for transforming the soul to a new form. After the sleep of death God will offer a more joyful morning in the eternity. Tagore’s optimistic soul brings new light on death as “It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening” ((Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013, p.85). In song no 28, the poet presented his vision of eternity beyond death for which we should cut the connection of our worldly bondage and possessions. The God will offer then more valuable priceless gift to his devotees. Our love for the mundane prestige is a sin and obstacle in the way of salvation for which the poet is ashamed. In song no 29 also the poet condemned the fame, glorious name that offered only cage and bondage within materialistic ambience and the spiritual soul would be stifled in it. It will forget its original form in divinity. The poet doesn’t suggest an ascetic life but to maintain the mundane duties without forgetting the spiritual existences. In song no 30 also the poet expressed his feeling of co-existence of another person that is the narrow self of the poet, his pride and ego in the way to meet the divine lover. It creates interruption in the communication with the spiritual master self for which the poet is reluctant to meet the God as he said:
He is my own little self, my lord,
he knows no shame; but I am ashamed
to come to thy door in his company. ((Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013,p.97)
Tagore here took the role of gurudev (the spiritual master) who guides the mankind regarding their true self in this world and also in permanent abode (the divine place).
Tagore’s conception of death is different from any other litterateur or philosopher of the world, here he is akin to the ancient Indian scripture, Vedanta, Upanisadas. He didn’t present death as a horrible happening for which people usually fear, but as a lover of the dying man who will lead to the eternal home for making permanent love enjoying the blissful ambience. In several of his literary pieces he presented death as a ferry service (kheya) to the eternal world. Actually his theory of ending of worldly life is partially based on the death of several of his dear persons in Jorasanko Thakurbari so that death became a ‘relative’ to him. In a long age of eighty years he witnessed the death of his parents, brothers, sister-in-law, wife, son, daughter that offered philosophical understanding on this. Gitanjali is a masterpiece in this regard where in song no 86, the treated death as an agent of God and the poet is ready to welcome him. He will offer his life as well as possessions to death so that he’ll lead him to the Almighty. The poet offered himself saying:
He will go back with his errand done,
leaving a dark shadow on my morning;
and in my desolate home only my forlorn self will remain as my
last offering to thee. ((Bhattacharya & Chakraborty,2013, p.249)
In song no 90 also he wished to offer all of his fame, name, possessions to the death with the request to take him to his eternal abode as the poet said in lyrical tone, “all the earnings and gleanings of my busy life will I place before him at the close of my days when death will knock at my door” ((Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013,p.259) . Similarly in poem no 91, Tagore treated death as the fulfillment of his life for which he had eagerly waited throughout life. Importantly he compared himself as the bride who will go with her bridegroom (death) to the in-laws house from her paternal home (mundane life). In the imagination of the bride she is just about to offer her marriage garland to her husband that was already woven specially for him. This is an unusual touch where death is compared with marriage and the poet is optimistic about the happy afterlife that every bride hopes in in-laws house. Again in song no 94, Tagore requested his friends, fellowmen to wish him good luck for his new journey towards eternity. Importantly he said that he’ll not take anything from this life to eternity. There is also a touch of marriage as the poet will go putting on garland. Usually both the newly married and dead man is ornamented with garlands in the wedding or funeral journey. Death is again compared as bridegroom lover that removed the horror in his appearance. However, he is sure that after arriving to the divine place the God will welcome him playing the flute, as he said:
The evening star will come out when
my voyage is done and the plaintive
notes of the twilight melodies be struck up
from the King's gateway. ((Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013, p.269)
In the first section this article the conflict between doubt and faith with the treatment of Alfred Tennyson and Matthew Arnold is depicted whereas in the second section the delineation of those question by Rabindranath Tagore in Gitanjali is presented that offered deep understanding of Tagore on the issue. There was no doubt in his soul regarding the existence of God in life and also the spiritual abode after death. Though Tagore lived in the later periods of Tennyson or Arnold when the scientific or materialist progress had much been upgraded the Victorian clash could not enter in his soul because he himself didn’t make this conflict. In Gitanjali he expressed his view on the condition of biologically living periods and it’s connection with the afterlife. He understood the ways how to get the spiritual blessings after the life that’s why he didn’t consider it that life ends with this worldly livings that happened in case of Tennyson when being provoked by Nature he thought that he had lost Arthur Hallam forever. Actually the conception of life and death was based on mundane definition to him that’s why he got the source of truth so late. But Rabindranath offered totally different view on these to parameters of human life and most interestingly he never did prescribe an ascetic life but to execute the duties in connection of making oneself prepared for the union with Almighty through death. Death is nothing but a divine agent to Tagore whom he welcomed wholeheartedly as a special guest of household but for the same situation Tennyson blamed God for snatching the life of his beloved friend. The difference lies also in the treatment of God between Tennyson and Tagore. God, Nature, Life, Death had special identities to Tennyson like the morality plays having vast difference with humans. But Tagore’s God, death, life are none but our close relatives or friends and sometimes lover. Death appeared as holy as marriage ceremony that removed its horror from the human mind. Tagore’s God is not a superior authority who would calculate the sins of life but ‘Jivan Devta’ (The Lord of Life) who appeared in the eponymous poem published in Chitra. Tagore reiterated the conception in Gitanjali as poem no 65 where the poet offered the essence of his life to the God for drinking it. This harmony through dedication can lead the human soul to the abode of spirituality surpassing the evils of mundane life. It’s the broader perception of Eliot’s adaptation of 'Datta’(to give), ‘dayadhvam’ (to sympathize), ‘damyata' (to control) in front of spiritual crisis in The Waste Land (1922). Tagore’s Jivan Devta is transcendental power who would act as a boatman for helping his passengers (human) to cross the worldly life to eternity. In song no 6, the poet treated the life like a flower to be offered to the divine feet. Human life is short like the fragrance of a flower, so the God should take it before it becomes fade, “Though its colour be not deep and/ its smell be faint, use this flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time” (Bhattacharyya & Chakraborty, 2013, p.43). It makes the difference between Tagore and any other poet in treatment of spirituality. W.B.Yeats got the points of Tagore on divine connection earnestly as he opined in the Preface to Gitanjali as:
Yet it is not only in our thoughts of the parting that this book fathoms all. We had not known that we loved God, hardly it may be that we believed in Him; yet looking backward upon our life we discover, in our exploration of the pathways of woods, in our delight in the lonely places of hills, in that mysterious claim that we have made, unavailingly on the woman that we have loved, the emotion that created this insidious sweetness. (Bhattacharyya & Chakraborty, 2013, p.27)
The difference of the belief in after life is apparent between Tennyson and Tagore. Tennyson thought that his dead friend Hallam would possess his name and identities in the spiritual life. Even his agonized soul was consoled after meeting his dead friend that provoked that it’s possible for a living man to keep contact with the dead persons. But Tagore never did suggest such type of connection as thought that out mundane life and possession is an obstacle on the way of getting spiritual life. There will be disconnection from all of mundane contact as he observed in poem no 93:
I HAVE GOT my leave. Bid me farewell,
my brothers! I bow to you all and take my departure.
Here I give back the keys of my door-
and I give up all claims to my house,
I only ask for last kind words from you. (Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013, p.266)
However Matthew Arnold lamented for the destruction of human connection, love comparing the solitariness with distinct island on the vast sea that represents the divided continents. It’s associated not with the ending of spirituality but humanitarian values. Tagore was highly concerned on the issue of separate nations and condemned it in his masterpiece Nationalism. He observed that the division of nation hampers the harmony and union of human souls that is a stigma of mankind. In Gitanjali he also forces the issue in poem no 35 that is one of the most notables in his career where he opined that:
WHERE THE mind is without fear and
the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken
up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth (Bhattacharya & Chakraborty, 2013, p.109)
He suggested not to divide the world that would act as a way of creating difference between man to man on several grounds. It would hamper the free mingling of human souls that is a problem of twentieth century and also in the present time. Tagore’s spirituality is also related with the union of souls with one another offering universalism. It was the intention of Tagore to build Santiniketan “where the whole world would meet in one nest” (Thampi, 2017, p.95). It was also exemplified in his poem Santiniketan as he said:
She dwells in us and around us, however far we may wander.
She weaves our hearts in a song, making us one in music,
tuning our strings of love with her own fingers;
and we ever remember that she is our own,
the darling of our hearts. (Ray, 2007, p.319)
Reference: