Tagore Collection: Contemplating in Wanderings

Author: Ni Peigeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: At the turn of the century, the development of humanities and academia requires review and reflection, which is the need of advancing the socialist cultural cause. The considerable accumulation achieved by domestic academia in researching contemporary Western society under the guidance of Marxism has made such review and reflection possible. Therefore, we organized scholars to translate and select 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. Our aspirations are high, but our actions may fall short of our ideals. We sincerely hope for the support of the academic community. Tagore's religious and philosophical thought belongs to the category of objective idealism, but it is not without reasonable elements, as he focuses 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 said: "The drama 'Nature's Retribution' can be seen as the gateway to my future creative endeavors, or to put it more precisely, it is the theme that all my works touch upon—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 from the finite to the infinite. Thus, he pointed out: "The connection with human life is the main characteristic of literature," and "the world's breath plays what tune on the reed flutes of our hearts, and literature strives to reflect that melody." This is the reasonable core within Tagore's objective idealist aesthetic thought system.