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Rabindranath Tagore

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Poet

The Resume

    (May 7, 1861-August 7, 1941)
    Born in Kolkata, India
    Poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, songwriter and painter
    Poetry collections include 'The Songs of Bhanushingho Thakur' (1884), 'Manasi' ('The Ideal One,' 1890), 'Sonar Tari' ('The Golden Boat,' 1894), 'Gitanjali' ('Song Offerings,' 1910), 'Gitimalya' ('Wreath of Songs,' 1914) and 'Balaka' ('The Flight of Cranes,' 1916)
    Wrote the novels Ghare-Baire' ('The Home and the World,' 1916) and 'Yogayog' ('Crosscurrents,' 1929)
    Wrote the plays 'Raja' (1910), 'The Post Office' (1912), 'The Immovable' (1912), 'The Waterfall' (1922) and 'Red Oleanders' (1926)
    Composed the opera 'The Genius of Valmiki' (1881)
    Won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1913)

Why he might be annoying:

    He first published poems under a pseudonym, with the result that they were declared long-lost classics from the 17th century.
    He suffered bouts of depression, with one of the worst coming after his Nobel Prize win.
    He met Mussolini and declared, 'Without any doubt he is a great personality.'
    His translations of his own work were derided by W.B. Yeats, who said, 'Because he thought it more important to know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation.'
    His Nobel medal was stolen from a museum in India (2004).

Why he might not be annoying:

    Because his mother died when he was young and his father travelled widely, he was largely raised by servants, who frequently beat him.
    One of his sons and one of his daughters died in childhood.
    He was the first non-Westerner to win a Nobel Prize.
    He was kinghted (1915).
    He renounced his knighthood to protest the Amritsar massacre, in which British soldiers fired on unarmed protestors (1919).
    He rebuked Mahatma Gandhi for suggesting that an earthquake was divine retribution for India's treatment of the untouchables caste.
    Songs he wrote were adopted as national anthems by India and Bangladesh.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 13 Votes: 84.62% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 30 Votes: 36.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 19 Votes: 52.63% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 44 Votes: 65.91% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 37 Votes: 75.68% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 91 Votes: 58.24% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 26 Votes: 65.38% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 66 Votes: 71.21% Annoying