Tagore Collection -- 20th Century Foreign Cultural

Author: Ni Peigeng (Editor and Compiler)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: At the turn of the century, the development of humanities and academia requires reflection and review, which is a necessity for the advancement of socialist cultural undertakings. The considerable accumulation achieved by domestic academia in studying contemporary Western society under the guidance of Marxism has made such reflection and review possible. Therefore, we organized scholars to translate and compile the "Library of Foreign Cultural Figures of the 20th Century." "Cultural figures" is merely a colloquial term, and the selection of candidates is based on academic value. As for the selected writings in each figure's collection, they are intended to genuinely reflect the intellectual characteristics and academic perspectives of the individual, providing readers with the opportunity to analyze, study, draw inspiration from, and critique both the person and their works. While our aspirations are high, our actions may fall short of them. We sincerely look forward to the support of the academic community. Tagore's religious and philosophical thought belongs to the category of objective idealism, but it is not without its reasonable elements. He focused on phenomena and human beings, with particular emphasis on the spiritual aspect of humanity. Tagore's aesthetic thought is an extension of his religious and philosophical views. In his "My Reminiscences," he stated: "The drama 'Nature's Retribution' can be seen as the gateway to my future creative work, or more precisely, it is the theme that all my writings address—the joy of reaching the infinite from the finite." He believed: "Art is the answer of the creative soul of humanity to the call of the highest truth." However, he also advocated perceiving the infinite within the finite and moving beyond the finite to reach the infinite. Thus, he pointed out: "The connection with human life is the main characteristic of literature," and "the world breathes out melodies on the reed flutes of our hearts, and literature strives to reflect those tunes." This is the reasonable core within his objective idealist aesthetic thought system.