Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was a poet, philosopher, educationist, artist and social activist. Hailing from an affluent land-owning family from Bengal, he received traditional education in India before traveling to England for further study. He abandoned his formal education and returned home, founding a school, Santiniketan, where children received an education in consonance with Tagore's own ideas of communion with nature and emphasis on literature and the arts.
In time, Tagore's works, written originally in Bengali, were translated into English; the Geetanjali ("Tribute in verse"), a compendium of verses, named 'Song Offerings' in English was widely acclaimed for its literary genius. In 1913, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the first person of non-Western heritage to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
In protest against the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, he resigned the knighthood that had been conferred upon him in 1913. Tagore holds the unique distinction of being the composer of the national anthems of two countries, India and Bangladesh. He was the first non-European and first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.
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