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 became something of a cult to the indignation of the conservative stylists wedded to the austere dignities of the old "pure language." With a boldness such as Dante showed when he made the language of the people the chosen vehicle of his greatly daring imagination, Rabindranath Tagore sang and wrote for Bengal in words which even the illiterate understand. If time-honoured restraints hampered his expression, he ﬂung them aside, believing that new life means new forms and the new wine must be put into new bottles. He has been accused of using language so colloquial as to be no better than slang. "Mr Tagore is a people's poet."

In Bengal we see before us the dawn of a new age of popular literature. We see before us the ﬁgure of the nonchalant hero delivering his message to the people in their own tongue. The pedants of Bengal redicule him; as the Pandits of Maharashtra rediculed Dhyan Dev and others who wrote their works for the people in the people's tongue. Tyndale was cruelly persecuted and eventually strangled to death for having attempted to translate the Bible into the English language for the benefit of the common people in England. Bunyan wrote his immortal books amidst the sneers of the English pedants. 'Rabi Babu,' as the people of Bengal call their poet, openly vindicated the use of the living speech explaining to the public, as Wordsworth did,