The References to Musical Imagery in Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali

Abstract

The musical imagery represents inner hearing of a mental representation of music. A person could show musical imagery through music or another art form such as a song, poem, painting, and other literary works so. Rabindranath Tagore’s great literary work Gitanjali provides some references to musical imagery through the Psychological effect of music, concept of recitative andsong,imageries on musical instruments andphilosophicalaspect of music.The purpose of this study is toanalyze those references to musical imageries for understandingtheoretical background of music. This analytical work contributes to study and construct music theory from Sri Lankan literary work for music researchers and educators. The research problem is to analyze which types of forms depict the references to musical imagery in Gitanjali. Also the qualitative research method is used in this study. The result of the study shows that some great literary works contribute to improve musical knowledge, combination of the concept of music and psychology, relationship between music and other art and function of musical instruments to build up theoretical background of music.