GITANJALI

POETRY In today’s world, it may seem unlikely that Indian devotional poetry would be considered prize-worthy literature in the West. Lines that describe homesick cranes flying back to their nest as a metaphor for mankind’s return to God are potent sentiments. More than that, they are devout supplications. “My life,” Rabindranath Tagore wrote in the concluding lines of Gitanjali, takes “its voyage to its eternal home in one salutation to thee.” What more need be said? But the West did have an answer. In one glorious moment of recognition it awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The book includes the original introduction by William B. Yeats as well as an introduction orginal to this volume.