Tagore and Orientalism: Tagore Studies as a Focus for East-West Debate

Title

Tagore and Orientalism: Tagore Studies as a Focus for East-West Debate

Author

Yu-ting LEE

Page

219-259

DOI

10.6163/tjeas.2013.10(1)219

Abstract

This essay adopts a critical approach to the making of Tagore's (1861-1941) public image and the concomitant studies of him. By exploring the ideological premises that have undergirded the historical and interpretive narratives of the Indian poet for a century, this paper demonstrates that many of the regional, temporal, and thematic ramifications of the topic are, on a deeper theoretical level, closely related to the different ways of conceiving and projecting the East, which constitute different types of Orientalism.
The introduction discusses and lays the methodological groundwork for this Orientalism. Section 1 critically reviews the process of Tagore's rise to fame in the West, which by way of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature elevated him to the position of "Eastern messenger." Section 2 juxtaposes India's and the West's contrasting attitudes towards Tagore's cultural legacies; while relevant studies develop in different directions in the two parts of the world, the thread of "East-West civilizations" is common to their problematics. Section 3 depicts Tagore's interaction with Japanese and Chinese intellectuals, and indicates how the conventions of Tagore studies in the two countries have been shaped by their respective identifications with "Asia." The conclusion delves into how Orientalism as an ideology permeates the three levels of "the mythologizing of Tagore," "the crystallization of Tagore studies," and "the emergence of the East as an issue."

Keyword

Tagore, Orientalism, Asia, East-West civilizations, nationalism

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