Introduction: Tagore in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century

Abstract Titled “Tagore in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century: In and Out of Tradition,” the Introductory chapter discusses the colonial material and discursive context that went into the making of Tagore the author, philosopher, activist, and composer and with which Tagore engaged to leave his mark of originality. It clears space for historicizing and putting into proper historical and ideological perspectives the arguments made in the subsequent chapters. In the process, challenging a few notions held in existing scholarship, it shows how in certain cases, Tagore was not as original as he is claimed to be, and in certain others, how his originality has not been adequately acknowledged. Exploring how the nineteenth-century English-educated Bengali intelligentsia devised a textual politics to counter the colonial epistemological hegemony in particular and the imperial biopolitics in general, the chapter explores the modalities of Tagore’s engagement with Indian pasts and texts—especially the Upanishads—and Western texts and discourses, which shaped his alternative modernity. Through these discussions, the chapter seeks to trace the historical, political, and ideological coordinates to understand Tagore’s creative and activist life at large and his music and musicology in particular.