Rabindranāth started writing critical and analytic pieces on literature and art from the very outset of his career. His first published prose composition, in 1876, was a review of three contemporary poetical works. From that time till his death in 1941, his critical writings appeared in a steady stream alongside his creative works. In June 1941, some two months before his demise, he wrote his last critical essay ‘Satya o bāstab’ (Truth and Reality), first published in the journal Prabāsi as ‘Sāhitya, shilpa’ (Literature, Art). His critical essays comprise some hundred items. There are also countless remarks and discussions of literature and art in his poems, novels, short stories, and plays, even his letters and diaries.

Despite this abundance of material, there are some problems in understanding Tagore's views on the subject. The first and most fundamental might well be his distinctive style of writing. In 1881, he wrote in the essay ‘Sangit o kabitā’ (Music and Poetry): ‘Reason at its height finds expression in prose, emotion at its height in poetry.’ However, he did not always follow this precept in his own work. Buddhadeb Basu (Buddhadeva Bose) once remarked that ‘Rabindranath could not fully reconcile the roles of poet and prose writer: … the clash between the two has done harm to his novels.’ The harm to his critical writings might have been greater, as they often do not embody the clear reasoned discourse we might expect.

For example, in 1926, at the convention of Bengali writers living outside Bengal, Amal Hom attacked the upcoming young writers, especially Modernists associated with the journal Kallol, as ‘vacuous and lacking in taste’. Needless to say, those writers were vocal in their defence. As the protests mounted, Rabindranath (some say at the behest of Amal Hom and his supporters) wrote two essays admonishing the Modernists, ‘Sāhityadharma’ (The Inherent Nature of Literature) and ‘Sāhitye nabatwa’ (Novelty in Literature). The first wraps its critical message in an allegorical tale. A king's son, a general's son, and a merchant's son set out in search of a princess, or rather ‘a truth called a princess’. The general's son has the mind of a detective.