Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is India's greatest modern poet and the most brilliant creative genius produced by the Indian Renaissance. As well as poetry, he wrote songs, stories and novels, plays, essays, memoirs and travelogues. He was both a restless innovator and a superb craftsman, and the Bengali language attained great beauty and power in his hands.

As a poet, novelist, musician, and playwright, Tagore reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As author of Gitanjali and its 'profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse', he became Asia's first Nobel laureate by winning the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore denounced the British Raj and supported the Indian Independence Movement. His efforts endure in his vast canon and in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University. Two Tagore songs are the national anthems of Bangladesh and India: 'Amar Shonar Bangla' and 'Jana Gana Mana'.