Language, Limits, and Beyond: Early Wittgenstein and Rabindranath Tagore

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s interest in the writings of Rabindranath Tagore, is recognized among scholars worldwide though little has been written on his fascination with Tagore’s poetry and symbolic plays. In Language, Limits, and Beyond, Priyambada Sarkar explores Tagore and Wittgenstein’s philosophical arguments on the concept of ‘threshold of language and meaning’, highlighting the systematic connections between Tagore’s canon and Wittgenstein’s early works. Situating her study in the early 1900s, when Tagore’s poetry had just become available in Europe, Sarkar finds similarities between Tagore’s and Wittgenstein’s exploration of the limits of language. She argues that Wittgenstein’s early philosophy can be better understood when juxtaposed with Tagore. Drawing parallels between the worlds of philosophy and poetry, Sarkar identifies the point of convergence of their two philosophies in the realm of language, tracing how they reach surprisingly similar conclusions through entirely different paths of inquiry. Sarkar finally claims that such important points of contact will help one to arrange the pieces of the Tractarian jigsaw puzzle in a manner where all the pieces of logic, language, world, and the mystical will fall into place and form a coherent picture.