Novelist Tagore

Radha Chakravarty

Rabindranath Tagore is widely regarded as a poet-philosopher and educationist, but his novels remain a relatively underexplored aspect of his oeuvre. Focusing on gender and modernity as key features of his fiction, this book charts Tagore's evolution as a novelist from self-conscious psychologizing in Chokher Bali to an engagement with nationalism in Gora and Ghare Baire (The Home and the World); a portrayal of asceticism and desire in Chaturanga (Quartet); an analysis of marriage, sexuality and change in Bengali society in Yogayog (Relationships); an effervescent fusion of social satire and literary experimentation in Shesher Kabita (Farewell Song); and an intense, dramatic study of love, politics, and terrorism in Char Adhyay (Four Chapters).