Question

Who wrote the introduction to Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali?

• A. T. S. Eliot
• B. Ezra Pound
• C. W. H. Auden
• D. W. B. Yeats

Hint:

Tagore's Gitanjali (1912) $\Rightarrow$ Yeats's Introduction (key to Tagore's reception in the West). A handy memory hook: "Yeats ushered Tagore to Europe."

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

Step 1: Recall the publication context.
Tagore translated a selection of his Bengali lyrics into English and published them in London in 1912 as Gitanjali: Song Offerings. The slim volume (India Society edition) was issued with an Introduction by a leading Anglo-Irish poet who was then living in London and had personally met Tagore, praised his spiritual lyricism, and helped present him to English readers.

Step 2: Identify the introducer.
That eminent poet was W. B. Yeats. His Introduction (dated 1912) enthusiastically commends Tagore's "noble simplicity" and helped create immediate literary interest in the West, paving the way for Tagore's 1913 Nobel Prize.

Step 3: Eliminate the distractors with reasons.
\begin{itemize} \item (A) T. S. Eliot — a contemporary modernist, but he had no editorial role in Gitanjali; his critical affiliations and aesthetics (impersonal classicism) were distant from Tagore's mystical lyric mode. \item (B) Ezra Pound — he promoted many non-Anglo traditions and worked with Yeats in London, but did not write the Introduction to Gitanjali. \item (C) W. H. Auden — a later-generation poet; he wrote notable forewords/essays elsewhere (e.g., on Yeats) but nothing to do with the 1912 Gitanjali Introduction. \end{itemize} \[ \boxed{\text{Therefore, (D) W. B. Yeats.}} \]