Both Tagore and Mrs. Naidu, the illustrious luminaries in the firmament of Indo-Anglian poetry are pre-eminently lyric poets. In the poem of both these poets we get the glimpses of India. What W.B. Yeats said of Tagore's lyrics is true of Naidu too: "The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much the growth of the common soil as the grass and the rushes... A whole people, a whole civilization, immeasurably strange to us, seems, to have been taken up into this imagination; we have met our own image, as though we had walked in Rosettis' willow wood, or heard, perhaps for the first time in literature, our voice as in a dream."
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| A Comparison between Tagore and Sarojini Naidu As Poets |
In Sarojini's poems we find a picture of India's fauna and flora, festivals and faiths, customs and traditions, cities and bazaars, common people such a corn-grinders, legendary figures such as Krishna, Buddha and Radha, contemporary figure such as Gandhi, Gokhale and the Nizam of Hyderabad and the like.
Nevertheless, Tagore touches our deeper chords more strongly than Mrs. Naidu. Tagore's poetry is an offering to God and is much more mystical than that of Sarojini. His nature poetry, unlike that of Mrs. Naidu, contains deep thought, e.g.
“The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooled in the shade,
Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon.
The shepherd boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree,
And I lead myself down by the water and stretched my tired limbs on the grass....
And surrendered my mind without struggle...”
Sarojini's nature poetry does not contain any deep thought. She picturesquely describes the nature of "eye and ear" in her nature poems—Vasant Panchmi, In Praise of Gulmohur Blossoms, A Song in Spring, Summer Wood, June Sunset etc. The following lines from A Song in Spring reveal her fascination for the sensuous appeal of nature and her glaring contrast with Tagore:
“Wild bees that rifle the mango blossom,
Set free awhile from the love god's string,
Wild birds that sway in the citron branches,
Drunk with the rich, red honey of spring,
Fireflies weaving serial dances
In fragile rhythms of flickering gold,
What do you know in your blithe, brief season
Of dreams deferred and a heart grown old?”
To Tagore Spring is the harbinger of new hopes and freedom and not a medley of colours and perfumes as it is to Sarojini. Tagore welcomes the advent of spring:
“Come, spring, reckless lover of the earth, make the forest's heart pant for utterance!
Come in gusts of disquiet where flowers break open and jostle the new leaves!
Burst, like a rebellion of light, through the night's vigil, through the lake's dark dumbness...
Like the laughter of lightning, like the shout of a storm...”
According to Tagore, nature moulds human thoughts and character and has the power of elevate human beings from the mundane and sordid realities of life. In his poetry we find complete identification of man with nature. In his beautiful lyric The End the child tells his mother that death will only transform him into various objects of nature. Sarojini Naidu does not make nature divine. She seeks to know Nature perfectly as a thing of beauty like an observer realistically. She like Tagore depicts the calm and peaceful moods of nature and not nature in tumult. Unlike Sarojini, Rabindranath has the unique faculty of endowing nature with human qualities, sometimes like a maiden at other times like a Mother.
Love occupies a cardinal place in a poetry of both Naidu and Tagore. Sarojini expresses the joys and sorrows of love, The rapture of fulfilment and the poignant pangs of frustration and separation. True love is self-surrender. Tagore's lover poems have a wider sweep and he describes numerous manifestations of love—human love, divine love and love of humanity. The scope of love in the poetry of Sarojini is much more limited. She does not explore the unfathomable depths of human love. Her songs are mostly confined to human love. "Tagore uses the images common to classical Indian love poetry to symbolize his yearning to merge with God and his joy at an imminent union."
Both Tagore and Sarojini belong to the romantic tradition of poetry; both are humanists and well as theists. But Sarojini's poetry is less divine and mystic. It is full of more melancholy, frustration, defeat etc. Her poems reveal helplessness and limitations to a spirit crushed and awed by fate. The very fact that Tagore won the Noble Prize for the Gitanjali and is rated amongst the world poets makes his poetry superior to Sarojini Naidu's. In his poetry there is a note of sheer optimism, which arises from the feeling of fulfilment and realization of the divine.
Sarojini Naidu's romanticism is confined only to the sensuous and picturesque presentation of the various facets to Indian life. Tagore expresses the mystical experiences underlying the sensuous manifestations. His poetry is the glorification of the commonplace and the innocent aspect of life. Sarojini Naidu herself adored Tagore's lyrics and praised them from the description of childhood. "To him the laughter of a child had a divine meaning and a divine beauty, for to him children played on sea-shore of endless worlds." Sarojini does not glorify childhood.
Both Tagore and Sarojini Naidu occupy a prominent place in Indo-Anglian lyrical poetry. There is simplicity, lucidity and gracefulness combined with profundity of emotions in Tagore's lyrics. Sarojini's lyrics have a distinctive place in respect of lighting brimful of deep feelings as Tagore's lyrics are. In Tagore we find a unique sweetness and lucidity of expression. Whereas Tagore has been an influence and has a universal appeal, Sarojini's influence and appeal are limited. His range is much wider; he composed about 1400 songs and 2000 poems whereas Sarojini's poetic output is very much limited, to a meagre 300 poems worth-reading. Tagore is a sage, Sarojini is an adolescent or a sentimental school girl.