Rabindranath Tagore
Bengali poet, philosopher and polymath (1861–1941)
Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali: [ˈrobind̪ɾonat̪ʰ ˈʈʰakuɾ] ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali poet, author, playwright, musician, composer, philosopher, social reformer, painter, and one of the foremost figures of the Bengal Renaissance. In 1913, Tagore became the first Indian and non-European to win a Nobel Prize in any category, and also the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. A significant moulder of culture within Bengal and the Indian subcontinent, he wrote and composed the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his elegant prose and magical poetry were widely popular in the Indian subcontinent. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by the sobriquets Gurudeb, Kobiguru, and Bishwokobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Jessore and Bardhaman districts, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Rabindranath Tagore” is bengali poet, philosopher and polymath (1861–1941). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rabindranath, Tagore and Bengali, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7241. VIAF identifies the subject as 24608356. The Library of Congress control number is n80036680. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1861, 1941 and 1913.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rabindranath Tagore” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.