Utilization of Archetypal Symbolism in Tagore’s Gitanjali

Abstract

Rabindranath Tagore played a leading role in Indian cultural renaissance and came to be recognized as one of the architects of modern India. The publication of Gitanjali was the most significant event in Tagore’s writing career, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.  Gitanjali is a great mystical work and its mysticism always endures. Tagore expresses hi s firm convictions about God, and the human soul, and about the ultimate goal of human soul. Tagore heard mythological stories and fairy tales from his great -aunt Shubhankari and servant Shyam in his childhood and boyhood. It helped his songs to intersperse with symbolic, emotional and metaphysical overtones. Archetypal symbols are a term used to describe universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious response in a reader. In his early poetry Tagore emphasized spiritual realism and internationa l humanism. It is in his Naivedya he clearly marks out  these  two  characteristics.  As  he  progressed  in  mystical  thought  especially  during  the Gitanjali period, Tagore came to fully realize the importance of the symbolic use of language in religious poetry.  This analysis has been made here to show how the symbols and imagery have been used here recurrently to illuminate the poetic qualities of myth. These songs also show that Tagore has used myth as the expression of unconscious, feelings and instincts without focusing the light from different angles nobody can get the taste of the inner beauty of the poems of Tagore.