Thursday, October 10, 2013

Can anyone help me interpret "Unending Love" By Rabindranath Tagore?

One of the elements of Tagore's writing is the playing
around with the concept of time. Tagore is interesting in being able to identify
conditions in the present tense and examine how these "moments" are part of a larger
scope, something that reflects the past and the future. In doing so, Tagore reconfigures
time and our perception of it.  The experiences we experience now is a part of something
else, something larger, and in this we are enveloped with who we are now, who we might
have been, and who we might be.  This is where "Unending Love" finds
itself.


The love that the speaker is experiencing with his
beloved is something that is of the ages.  This vision of love is one that is
experienced right now, in its current form, but was something that is indelibly
imprinted in the consciousness of time.  The idea of "age after age" and the concept of
love being "remade" almost brings to life that there is a spiritual connection between
the two lovers, or at least felt by the speaker, that they have stood in their midst of
this love "before" in a previous time.  While the love that is spoken is specific
between two people, it is also reflective of a universal construct that applies to
"millions of lovers," bringing out the idea that the love shared is in fact,
"unending."


One of the implications of this is that
individuals are not in ownership of the love they share.  Rather, they are a part of
something infinitely more cosmic, an experience that is a small morsel of a larger
feast. It is a very interesting conception of the individual self that is rendered in
the poem.  The speaker articulates a condition of love that is felt towards another,
indicating it is a part of something larger.  However, herein lies a potential paradox
in that while it is expressed as something the speaker feels and something that is
experienced, it is not the speaker's, and it does not belong to him.  It is something
that is universal, and something of which he and his love is a small part and has been a
small part for some time.  In this, there is a vision of love that encompasses both the
specific and the universal, the present and all of time.  Tagore's stamp in the poetry
of love is to both praise and demystify the individual at the same
time.

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