Tagore and France I india and France
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The French writer was a second time, and far more deeply, perturbed and disappointed, when the poet accepted an invitation from Mussolini. On a first visit to Italy, on his way back from Argentina, Tagore had spent some time in Italy on his own. There he had met Professor Carlo Formichi (1871-1943), professor of Sanskrit and Buddhist Studies at Rome University. Tagore invited Formichi to teach in Visva-Bharati. The Italian professor went there in November 1925 along with Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984), his former student and then colleague at the University. Actually, Mussolini sent the two scholars at the Italian Government expense along with an important gift of Italian classics for the library. The Italian dictator who had ruthlessly started to eliminate his opponents thought that the visit of so famous an Indian poet as Tagore would add to his prestige. He wanted to make full use of the poet’s reputation in support of his political activities. Formichi, an enthusiastic supporter of Fascism, was the willing instrument through which this project could be successfully accomplished. When Formichi left Santiniketan, the poet, in his farewell address, expressed his feeling of debt in regard to Italy and her Government (22) (The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, vol. 3, p. 769-771). Not much later, when the official invitation came from the Italian Government, Tagore did not think necessary to find out more about Mussolini’s fascist regime before accepting. He was received there as an official guest of the government during three weeks. Rolland who wanted to warn the poet about the obnoxious fascist regime did not get a chance to see him on his way to Italy. Pained, he wrote to Kalidas Nag that he abandoned the project of going to India the following autumn “I feel that my presence at Santiniketan would not be useful.”(23) (R. Tagore et R. Rolland Correspondance. p.128) He added that he was worried that the poet was losing the right, as a moral figure, to speak the language of truth in Asia and in Europe. His feelings for Tagore were somewhat passionate. When the poet finally went to Villeneuve in June-July 1926 and spent there two weeks he learnt from Rolland the exact nature of the Italian state. Through him, he met Italian refugees who told him the horrors they had gone through. The poet was ashamed to have been caught unaware and he wrote an article in the form of a letter to C.F. Andrews which appeared in the press, both in England, in the Manchester Guardian, and in India, in a longer version, in the Visva-Bharati Quaterly. Many democrats in the West, friends of Rolland, thought that the poet’s condemnation of Fascism was not strongly worded enough. A single paragraph in a long text repudiated Mussolini’s regime directly (24) (The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, vol. 3, p. 773) Rolland got Tagore’s letter translated in parts by his sister and published in the periodical Europe though he found it very mild and unsatisfactory. (25) (Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson Rabindranath Tagore The Myriad-minded Man, pp. 266-276 and also The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, vol. 3, pp.769- 776 and 991-996) Rolland had to defend Tagore’s reputation against quite a few European intellectuals who lost no time in blaming the poet. The French writer had attributed to himself the task to warn Tagore against the dangerous political ideologies that were coming up in Europe. In 1933, as he did not dare to write directly to Tagore for warning him about the dangers of Nazism, he asked Kalidas Nag to do it for him. The judgment of Romain Rolland was somewhat harsh at the time of the Italian visit. It was difficult, if not impossible, for Tagore to keep abreast of European politics and, perhaps, even in Europe at that time, the nature of Mussolini’s regime was not yet clearly understood by many. Tagore was spending much time and effort, at a relatively advanced age, to look for funds for his university and was also distressed by the situation in India and his disagreements with Gandhi. In November 1926, Rolland writes in his diary: “One of the reasons that, now, push me back from the projected trip to India, is that I would be torn between the two rival groups.” (26) (Inde Journal, p.180). But, in spite of a momentary disappointment, Rolland, though more and more enmeshed in idealistic politics, was never forgetting that Tagore was primarily a poet and an artist. In July 1926, after the visit in Italy, Rolland wrote to Kalidas Nag about the poet: “I understand him perfectly; and, as he is, I love him.” (27) (Rabindranath Tagore et Romain Rolland p. 152) And also: “Poet, more one knows Tagore, more one recognizes to what extent this word essentially designates him. In his rich and enlightened personality, it is the Poet who dominates… One of the highest poets that the world has ever known.” (28) (Ibid.p.154). And again: “I love him tenderly. His nature is full of charm and kindness. He has his weaknesses. But there is in him nothing that is false, not even superficial. He is true in all that he feels. He is a poet, deeply.” (29) (Ibid.p.156) In front of Prasanta Mahalanobis who happened to pass through Villeneuve, Rolland, in confidence, made an interesting remark: “In Europe, Tagore’s popularity is less due to his poetical works, that are little or not at all known, than to certain elevated and free statements pronounced during the war, to his prophetic condemnation of imperialism, of machine-worship, of the blind force of the West, and to the almost sacred role that is attributed to him.” (30) (Journal Inde p.153) This remarkably pertinent judgement may partly explain the relative lack of literary interest for Tagore’s writings in France after the nineteen thirties. After the poet’s departure on July 4, 1926, Rolland gave expression to his sadness and fear not to see him again. He wrote, in his diary, a frank assessment of the great man: “His nature is eternally divided between his poetic aspirations, which are the deepest… and the prophetic social role that circumstances forced him to adopt. This role is glorious; and Tagore, in moments of passionate inspiration, was equal to it. But he does not remain in that height. The poet takes again the upper hand and also the aristocrat.” (31) (Ibid. p.155-56) Rolland wrote again: “In his avid and childish desire to travel everywhere in Europe, Tagore, who is not wealthy any more, has surrendered himself to an agent who organized paying lectures for him. And only the rich and snobbish public had access to them. So, everywhere, he has left behind him a bitter disappointment. And he, the most generous person, has given the impression to produce himself everywhere out of vanity and for the sake of money. It is heartrending.” (32) (Ibid. p.184) Most of the time, Rolland chose to blame the poet’s age and poor health for this. But, after the Italian visit, he wrote: “Should I add this? The pose that is natural to him, this patriarchal solemnity, which is an ancient Asiatic attitude, imposes itself on all that surrounds him - at first it fascinates, but later, contributes to separate him from his European friends. I love him tenderly, I worship him; and yet, (should I say it?) there was not a single meeting when I did not feel the diabolical desire to get up abruptly and to leave – to break the constraint of this solemn courtesy and of this etiquette. He does not notice it; nor do his people. It is the way of their social life… But fatally happens the shock between the old Orient and the hurried West which levels and cuts.” (33) (Ibid. p. 157) Both were probably expecting too much from one another, and they could never be fully satisfied. Rolland regretted that he had to depend on his sister for their mutual exchanges. Tagore would have liked to receive Rolland at Santiniketan and was disappointed that it never happened. In the spring of 1930, the poet went back to France and stayed in Albert Kahn’s villa in the South. He invited Rolland to join him there but, for some reason, the French writer did not go. Rolland was more and more involved in his work on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. In just a couple of years, his two volumes were researched, written and published. At the same period of time, his interest in Gandhi was getting stronger. Taking into account his Brahmo Samaj background, Tagore must have found it hard to understand the fascination of Rolland for the great mystic and his disciple. As for him, he expressed his views on spirituality in his remarkable lectures given at Oxford in 1930 and published later as The Religion of Man. In August 1930, Tagore was at Geneva for a few days and Rolland went to meet him. The poet spoke of Rammohun Roy and of his father. From 1930 to 1940, the rhythm of their correspondence slackened: there were four letters from Tagore and five from Rolland. Yet, in 1931, when Rabindranath was seventy year old, Rolland was one of those who took the initiative to edit a volume of homage to the poet published as The Golden Book of Tagore. The other sponsors were Albert Einstein, Costes Palamas, a Greek poet, Rolland’s friend, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Jagdish Chandra Bose. Rolland wrote a very poetical text in praise of the poet whom he described as: “for us the living symbol of the spirit of light and harmony, soaring, as a great and free bird, in the midst of storms.” (34) (Inde Journal, p. 293). In The Golden Book of Tagore, interestingly, his contribution consists in “three fragments of an early drama by the author, written about his twentieth year, in Rome, during his sojourn at the French School of the Farnese Palace.” These lines appear at the beginning of the English translation at the end of the volume (35) (pp. 327-333). The French original, placed first in the book, is entitled Niobé. As a dedication, Rolland wrote: “ To the magic bird from India I offer this young song of a small blackbird from France who was making an early attempt, just out from the nest. To Rabindranath Tagore with my affection and my respect.” Tagore had discovered in himself a passion and a talent for painting. He gave much of his time to his art but was diffident, at first, to show his works. He spoke of his paintings as “products of untutored fingers and untrained mind.” But, coming once more to Europe, he was keen to have the opinion of ‘connoisseurs’. The first exhibition of his works took place in Paris. It was inaugurated at Galerie Pigalle, on May 2, 1930, and was organized, in a very short time, thanks to the contacts and energy of Victoria Ocampo. It took place under the patronage of the Association des Amis de l’Orient. The exhibition was a social affair, and it is known that Romain Rolland, more and more involved with his writings on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda published in the same year 1930, and also with Gandhi, thought that Rabindranath’s health suffered and that he spent too much time with society people unworthy of him. To Kalidas Nag who came to see him in June of the same year, Rolland spoke about Tagore with affection but also regret: “Perpetual travelling, Rolland writes in his diary, has become for Tagore a sickly need, a worry that torment him. It has too many causes as we shall see…” Rolland mentioned several deaths in the poet’s family, his loneliness in India and the insufficient communication with his European friends, and Rolland himself, due to the absence of a common language. He continued: “He started painting as a diversion. And it is also because of a need for diversion, oblivion even, that he goes in search of or accepts in Paris mundane societies so little worthy of him and, for that, he is the object of the virtuous condemnations of our French friends. They have no idea of the tragedy hidden under this apparent frivolity.” (36) (Inde Journal, p. 278). Victoria Ocampo came to know of Rolland’s criticisms and she replied that among these “society people” were André Gide, the Gitanjali translator, and Paul Valéry, one of the most renowned poets on the French literary scene, Georges-Henri Rivière, the founder of Musée national des arts et traditions populaires and the inventor of a new museography, Jean Cassou, art critic, poet and translator from Spanish, Abbé Brémond, historian and member of the French Academy, and Abbé Mugnier, the spiritual director of many intellectuals and a friend of Marcel Proust, the novelist. She just mentioned the names and, for this essay, their qualifications were added. Ocampo agreed with Rolland that Tagore was passing through a crisis during which the artist had the upper hand over the guru (37) (Kripalani K. p. 365) In The Golden Book of Tagore, in 1931, Paul Valéry, who had met the poet at the exhibition of his paintings, wrote: “ I address to the illustrious poet the homage and the very fervent wishes that my Western soul inspires me for his person and his great work. I retain of him the most venerable memory.” (38) (p. 262) At that time, Valéry was an elected member of the Académie Française. In 1937, in his Journal, Rolland wrote about the meeting between Tagore and Gandhi in Calcutta that his sister had read for him in Harijan (November 20, 1937). He also noted down what he had read about Tagore’s illness and quoted a poem from Gitanjali. He was deeply moved and announced that the next day he would write to Tagore. (38) (Journal Inde, p. 499). It is the last mention of the poet in Rolland’s Diary, though he stopped writing it only in 1943, six years later. c- Andrée Karpelès (1885-1956) was one of Rabindranath’s young women friends. She was born in Paris in a well-to-do family. Her father, born in Eastern Europe, came to France as a poor man but soon earned a comfortable living importing indigo from India. The Karpelès family was regularly going to India for business and vacation. The father died, and the family was impoverished due to the discovery of a substitute for indigo. Andrée learnt painting in Paris. After the 1914-1918 war, she returned to India and stayed at Santiniketan where she taught painting and engraving.. She also took a lot of interest in folk art. She was close to the poet with whom she exchanged an affectionate correspondence once she returned to France. In 1923, she married Carl Adalrik Högman, a Swede. Andrée had a real devotion for the poet that her husband came to share. Together, they founded a publishing house, Ophrys, and started a collection of books called “Chitra”, in the south of France where they settled. Andrée went to meet Tagore in 1926 when he visited Italy. In May 1930, the couple took a very active interest in the exhibition of the poet’s paintings in Paris. Andrée wrote a long article analysing with a painter’s eyes and an artistic appreciation the 125 works that were exhibited. Their publishing house had a special collection on India, called “Feuilles de l’Inde”, in which appeared several books by Rabindranath and by his nephew, the painter Abanindranath. All of them were beautifully illustrated. Mr. Högman died two years after his wife. d- Alain Daniélou (1907-19994), born in a upper middle-class family from Brittany, learnt music, ballet dancing and singing in his youth. In the company of Raymond Burnier, a swiss photographer, he travelled all over Asia and visited the poet several times in Santiniketan between 1932 and 1937. A musicologist, he took a great interest in Tagore’s songs that he transcribed, translated and adapted to be played on the piano. Raymond Burnier took a number of photographs of Rabindranath and of the ashram, as well of temples, precisely those of Khajuraho and Konarak. Back in Europe, they created in Paris the Association des Amis de Tagore to help collecting funds for Santiniketan. In 1939, the two friends settled at Benares where Daniélou learnt Sanskrit, Hindi and classical music. In 1953, he left Benares for Madras where he became the keeper of the manuscrits in the library of the Theosophical Society at Adyar. Later, he joined the Institut français d’indologie at Pondicherry where he prepared editions of Sanskrit texts. In 1963, he became the director of the International Institute of Comparative Studies in Music located at Berlin. He wrote more than ten books about Indian music, religion and philosophy. He also made numerous recordings for the Unesco. He spent the rest of his life in Italy where he died. Christine Bossenec, a neighbour of the Daniélou family in Brittany, was sent to Santiniketan by Alain, in 1935, at the request of the poet. She was put in charge of the Girls’Hostel. She remained there till the poet’s death. Then, she became the director of the Alliance Française, the French Cultural Centre, in Calcutta. She remained a friend of the Tagore family. Back in France, she translated from Bengali, with the help of Kamaleswar Bhattacharya, a volume of Rabindranath’s short stories: Le Vagabond et autres histoires, published in 1962. With Rajeshwari Datta, she translated Souvenirs d’enfance, published in Paris in 1964. Conclusion It is often said that, in France, if not in Europe as a whole, the poet and the thinker went out of fashion after the nineteen thirties. Tagore’s criticism of Western civilization did not go well with many intellectuals after the First World War. His insistence on the spiritual nature of Eastern culture in comparison to European materialism displeased those who were active in defence of the Christian ideals. After the award of the Nobel Prize, Rabindranath was, once for all, put into the category of a guru, placed on a pedestal for veneration, and kept beyond critical evaluation. His physical appearance, so dignified, and the constant presence of devoted disciples, who always surrounded him, contributed to spread the image of an Eastern seer who could only be approached with folded hands. He was no longer seen as a writer, ever exploring new literary forms, but as a prophet whose message was ever the same. The books that were translated in the twenties, with few exceptions, presented the same inspiration than the Gitanjali, and the French critics judged them repetitive. The English renderings, made by Tagore himself or under his direction, do not read very well. At places, the poet amended his Bengali texts, probably to make them more readily acceptable to a western public. As for the French translations, apart from André Gide and Pierre-Jean Jouve, no other French poet of any repute attempted to translate Tagore’s poetry. So there is little of the original beauty in most of the translations. Another reason for the lack of interest of the French elite for Tagore as a writer, after the thirties, is probably also the great change that took place in literary taste ten years after Tagore’s Nobel Prize due to the advent of Surrealism. André Breton published his first Manifeste du Surréalisme in 1924, and the second, in 1930. The French literary scene was greatly transformed. It was not only a change, for many writers, it was a revolution. Then, there was the Second World War, and new trends came out in philosophy and literature. Albert Camus, as an intellectual preoccupied with ethical issues, could certainly have been interested by Tagore’s universalistic and humanistic thought, but we do not know whether he ever read him. In Europe, in general, and in France, in particular, political issues were largely dominant in the years around the Second World War. Ideological contests between the nationalists influenced by Fascism and the socialists impressed by the Soviet Union were not allowing much space for “Indian spirituality” in intellectual discussions. Now and after Hundred fifty years after his birth, there is still so much to learn from Tagore and so much to enjoy in reading him. Tagore is indeed a mystic poet, but he is not only a mystic poet. The range of his talent is astounding. As a novelist and a short story writer, he takes a stand on still burning issues of post-colonial ideology and feminist preoccupations. It is a pity that, after a period of great enthusiasm, he remained somewhat fossilized in the eyes of the French literary public. Yet, since the last decades of the previous century, there is a return to an appreciation of Indian spirituality among a section of the public. The exhibition of his paintings, The last Harvest, in February-March 2012, received the admiring attention of several art critics. The Alliance française, at first in Chittagong, Bangladesh, later in several places in India, as also in Paris, exhibited the rare photographs of Rabindranath and Santiniketan taken in the thirties by Raymond Burnier, Alain Daniélou’s friend. A radio programme on France Culture on February 11, 2012, recalled the many sides of Tagore’s genius with interviews of several specialists, ex-students of Visva-Bharati, Tagore’s University at Santiniketan, and a well-known Rabindrasangit singer. The Indian Embassy in Paris organized a Tagore Evening with two specialists and the founder-president of the Tagore Sangam, an association that aims at spreading the poet’s message through exhibitions of photographs and lectures. There is still much to discover in the many talented man that was Rabindranath Tagore. He was not only a writer of genius who gave his people a literary language of extraordinary brilliance and flexibility. He was also a pedagogue whose original ideas on education can inspire us to day. He gave his songs and dances to his countrymen, and his paintings to the world. In his essays, he has for us important messages about many burning issues of our time: tolerance, universalism, respect for nature, faith in reason that liberates from prejudices and superstitions. Tagore expects us to go beyond the narrow limits of our own self to open up to the multicultural world. My gratitude is due to Professor Uday Narayan Singh, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Visva-Bharati, and to Sri Banerjee, Project Officer, Rabindra Bhavan, as also to Sri Utpal Mitra, Senior Assistant (Archives) for their kindness and efficiency. I want to express my thanks to Elizabeth Vernier, from the BNF, who helped me immensely with her knowledge of the Tagore fund at our Bibliothèque nationale. Notes
Bibliography Anglès Auguste André Gide et le premier groupe de la Nouvelle Revue Française vol. 3 Une inquiétante maturité 1913-1914, Paris, Gallimard, Bibliothèque des idées, 1986. Aronson A. Rabindranath through Western Eyes, Calcutta: Riddhi-India, 1978 (1st ed. 1943). Chattopadhyay Basantakumar pranita, Prashantakumar Pal ed. Jyotirindranather Jiban-smriti, Kolkata : Subarnarekha, 2002. Davray Henry D. « Un mystique hindou Rabindranath Tagore » Le Mercure de France, 16.VIII, 1913, pp. 673-698. Dutta Krishna & Andrew Robinson Rabindranath Tagore The Myriad-Minded Man, London: Bloombury, 1995. Dutta Krishna & Andrew Robinson (eds.) Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Gide André L’offrande lyrique suivi de La corbeille de fruits, Paris, Poésie/Gallimard, 1963. Gide André et Schlumberger Jean Correspondance 1901-1950, Paris, NRF, Gallimard, 1993. (The) Golden Book of Tagore, Ramananda Chatterjee (ed.) Calcutta, 1931. Hay Stephen N. “The Development of Tagore’s Views on the Melting of “East” and “West” Acts of the 1960 International Seminar at Moscow. Hommage de la France à Rabindranath Tagore, Institut de civilisation indienne, Paris: de Boccard, 1962. Kripalani Krishna Rabindranath Tagore A Biography, Calcutta, Visva-Bharati, 1980. Lévi Sylvain (transl.) « Cinq poèmes inédits de Tagore, traduits du bengali: Le batelier, Terre et ciel, Concert mystique, Le voyageur, Saison des pluies », Yggdrasill, Bulletin de la poésie en France et à l’étranger, 25 mai 1938. Cote BNF [micr. 4622]. Moulènes Anne-Marie « Gide et Tagore » Etudes, Paris, juin 1969, pp. 851-863. Mukhopadhyay PrabhatKumar Ravindrajivani 4 vols, Kalikata: Visva-Bharati Granthabibhag, 3rd ed. 1401(B.S.) Pal Prashantakumar Ravijivani, Calcutta, Ananda, vol. 8 : 2001. Rabindra Racanavali 15 vols, Kalikata: Pashchim Banga Sarkar, 1368 B.S. (1961). Rabindranath Tagore et Romain Rolland Lettres et autres écrits, Cahiers Romain Rolland 12, Paris, Albin Michel, 1961. Rolland Romain Inde Journal 1915-1943, Nouvelle édition augmentée, Paris: Editions Albin Michel, 1960. Rosen Jean H. de « Rabindranath Tagore » La Revue, n°8, 15 avril 1913, pp. 496-503. Sylvain-Lévy D. Dans l’Inde De Ceylan au Népal, Paris: F. Rieder &Cie Editeurs, 6th ed. 1926. Reprinted in 2008 by Editions Kailash. Tagore Rabindranath The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, ed. Sisir Kumar Das, 3 vols, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 1996. Tilby Michael « Gide et l’Angleterre » actes du colloque de Londres Gide et la littérature anglaise, Patrick Pollard, ed. 22-24 novembre 1985, pp. 67-77.
i Rabindra-racanavali, vol.10 ,p. 392-393 2 Ibid.
3 Ibid. p. 497. 4 La Revue, n°8, 15 avril 1913, pp. 496-503. Yüklə 103,61 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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