The Nobel Prize winners in literature

Name: The Nobel Prize winners in literature
Author: Marble, Annie Russell

Marble, Annie Russell

Authors; Literature -- History and criticism; Nobel Prize winners; Nobel Prizes; Nobel, Alfred Bernhard, 1833-1896

In addition to his work as educator for boys, Rabindranath Tagore has
been a strong influence for more training and freedom for the women
of India. He believes that the life of woman, in a generic sense,
is more full and harmonious than that of man. He found the ideas of
both Hindu teachers and Christian missionaries were extreme, as he
viewed them, but he advocated education and broadened opportunities.
As an Oriental he has poetized the love of the home, the coming of
the woman at the end of the day, “with a pitcher of nectar,” to bring
comfort to the home. His poetic play, _Chitra_, much discussed and
puzzling in passages to a Western mind, is a frank exposition of
his philosophy regarding the sensuous and spiritual qualities of
women. Other expressions are in _The Home and the World_ (1919) and
_Personality_ (1917) and in plays like _Sanyas_, and _The King and the
Queen_ (in _Sacrifice and Other Plays_, New York, 1917). That he is a
lover of children, and able to interpret their thoughts and fancies
with unmatched beauty, is evident to all readers of Sir Rabindranath
Tagore’s writings (he was knighted in 1915). His own simplicity of
nature and life, his imagination in its purity and freedom, make him
an intimate comrade for boys and girls. The year after he received the
Nobel prize, the original, unrhymed poems, _The Crescent Moon_, were
translated, with effective illustrations in color. _Stray Birds_, with
frontispiece in color by Willy Pogany (1921), is another appealing and
typical book, but more mature and philosophical.

The periods of childhood, from babyhood to school days and
letter-writing, are unfolded in _The Crescent Moon_ in delightful
pictures. Especially intuitive are “Baby’s World,” “Paper Boats,” “The
Little Big Man,” and “The First Jasmines.” Humor enlivens many of
these fancies and questions of the child, as in “Twelve O’Clock” and
“Authorship”; the latter raises a query--_why_ the mother allows father
to waste “heaps of paper” without a protest, while a single sheet,
taken for a paper boat, may bring a remonstrance to the child. There
is emotional beauty and Oriental philosophy in “The Beginning.” “Where
have I come from?” asks the child, and the mother:

    She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to
      her breast,--
    You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling....
    In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother
      you have lived.
    In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been
      nursed for ages....
    As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all
      have become mine.[98]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The Nobel Prize winners in literatureMarble, Annie Russell

History

The Nobel Prize winners in literature

Marble, Annie Russell

Authors; Literature -- History and criticism; Nobel Prize winners; Nobel Prizes; Nobel, Alfred Bernhard, 1833-1896

In addition to his work as educator for boys, Rabindranath Tagore has
been a strong influence for more training and freedom for the women
of India. He believes that the life of woman, in a generic sense,
is more full and harmonious than that of man. He found the ideas of
both Hindu teachers and Christian missionaries were extreme, as he
viewed them, but he advocated education and broadened opportunities.
As an Oriental he has poetized the love of the home, the coming of
the woman at the end of the day, “with a pitcher of nectar,” to bring
comfort to the home. His poetic play, _Chitra_, much discussed and
puzzling in passages to a Western mind, is a frank exposition of
his philosophy regarding the sensuous and spiritual qualities of
women. Other expressions are in _The Home and the World_ (1919) and
_Personality_ (1917) and in plays like _Sanyas_, and _The King and the
Queen_ (in _Sacrifice and Other Plays_, New York, 1917). That he is a
lover of children, and able to interpret their thoughts and fancies
with unmatched beauty, is evident to all readers of Sir Rabindranath
Tagore’s writings (he was knighted in 1915). His own simplicity of
nature and life, his imagination in its purity and freedom, make him
an intimate comrade for boys and girls. The year after he received the
Nobel prize, the original, unrhymed poems, _The Crescent Moon_, were
translated, with effective illustrations in color. _Stray Birds_, with
frontispiece in color by Willy Pogany (1921), is another appealing and
typical book, but more mature and philosophical.

The periods of childhood, from babyhood to school days and
letter-writing, are unfolded in _The Crescent Moon_ in delightful
pictures. Especially intuitive are “Baby’s World,” “Paper Boats,” “The
Little Big Man,” and “The First Jasmines.” Humor enlivens many of
these fancies and questions of the child, as in “Twelve O’Clock” and
“Authorship”; the latter raises a query--_why_ the mother allows father
to waste “heaps of paper” without a protest, while a single sheet,
taken for a paper boat, may bring a remonstrance to the child. There
is emotional beauty and Oriental philosophy in “The Beginning.” “Where
have I come from?” asks the child, and the mother:

    She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to
      her breast,--
    You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling....
    In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother
      you have lived.
    In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been
      nursed for ages....
    As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all
      have become mine.[98]

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Nobel Prize winners in literature

The Nobel Prize winners in literature

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