สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

20 The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume III - 2011 20 Rabindranath Tagoreûs Contributions to Thailand and the World use of his imagination, he had discovered an occupation compatible with his personality and inner need. In Morning Songs , the joy of life was expressed, which proved that Tagore was going against the traditional Indian outlook on life i.e. the rejection of the world. Rabindranath Tagore has enriched the literary world with poetical works, novels, plays, short stories, tales, essays, thoughtful addresses and lectures, about two hundred and sixty titles altogether. Mahatma Gandhi called Tagore çGurudevé because his works are divine and inspiring spiritually. Rabindranath Tagore is also praised as the çWizard of Words,é words which remain meaningful through translations into various languages of the world. For example, if we read Tagoreûs Gitanjali , the poetic work that won him the Nobel Prize, either in Thai or English translation, we shall feel spiritually uplifted. Of course, the original work in Bengali, his native tongue, may be the best, if we are lucky enough to know that beautiful language. The Irish poet W.B. Yeats wrote in his introduction to Gitanjali as follows: çThese lyrics › which are in the original, my Indians tell me, full of subtlety of rhythm, of untranslatable delicacies of colour, of metrical invention › display in their thought a world I have dreamed of all my life long. (Tagore, 1970b: xiii) Picture 3 Tagore with Mahatma Gandhi 16-28_mac9 5/3/12, 11:13 PM 20