The Cycle of Spring (1919) is a play by Rabindranath Tagore. Translated into English by Tagore after he received the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, The Cycle of Spring is a powerful and playful meditation on the cycle of nature, the ethics of leadership, and the regenerative function of art. Spring has arrived and the people are joyous, making music and preparing to celebrate the end of a harsh winter. At the palace, however, the King has discovered two grey hairs, cause for despair in a man obsessed with maintaining a youthful image. As his advisors attempt to focus his attention―a famine in Nagapatam requires his immediate intervention; an ambassador from China has arrived―the King summons the court Poet. Tasked with staging a performance for his majesty, the bard puts on a symbolic performance with the hope of inspiring a renewed sense of energy in the palace. This edition of Rabindranath Tagore’s The Cycle of Spring is a classic of Indian literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an Indian poet, composer, philosopher, and painter from Bengal. Born to a prominent Brahmo Samaj family, Tagore was raised mostly by servants following his mother’s untimely death. His father, a leading philosopher and reformer, hosted countless artists and intellectuals at the family mansion in Calcutta, introducing his children to poets, philosophers, and musicians from a young age. Tagore avoided conventional education, instead reading voraciously and studying astronomy, science, Sanskrit, and classical Indian poetry. As a teenager, he began publishing poems and short stories in Bengali and Maithili. Following his father’s wish for him to become a barrister, Tagore read law for a brief period at University College London, where he soon turned to studying the works of Shakespeare and Thomas Browne. In 1883, Tagore returned to India to marry and manage his ancestral estates. During this time, Tagore published his Manasi (1890) poems and met the folk poet Gagan Harkara, with whom he would work to compose popular songs. In 1901, having written countless poems, plays, and short stories, Tagore founded an ashram, but his work as a spiritual leader was tragically disrupted by the deaths of his wife and two of their children, followed by his father’s death in 1905. In 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first lyricist and non-European to be awarded the distinction. Over the next several decades, Tagore wrote his influential novel The Home and the World (1916), toured dozens of countries, and advocated on behalf of Dalits and other oppressed peoples.
