Poems of Love and War

Author: A.K. Ramanujan
Translator(s)/ Edito: A.K. Ramanujan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 329
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195680898

Description

Poetry from the early classical Tamil (c. 100 BC –AD 250) is among the finest in Indian, as well as world literature.In this volume, award-winning poet and translator, A.K. Ramanujan has selected, from the Eight Anthologies and Ten Long poem, by a ‘fraternity or academy’ of poets known as the Cankam. Most amazingly, poems about the difficulties of Love (in union, separation, or infidelity), and poems about kings, death and destruction; war and reconstruction, are as fresh and relevant a when they were composed two millennia ago.

Ramanujan is a meticulous translator who is faithful to the original poems: He keeps close to the structure of the poems while clothing them with the texture of modern English. In Poems of Love and war, poem speaks to poem with lyricism and drama, and Ramanujan’s essay (Afterword) on poetry of the Cankam period is an invaluable tool in studying the Tamil world-view and its relation to poetry and poetics. This edition contains a new preface
by Molly Daniels-Ramanujan.

Contents

Preface By
Molly A. Daniels-Ramanujan

Translator's Note


THE POEMS
1. Akam Poems
2. Puram Poems
3. Poems in a Different Key
4. Religious Poems


AFTERWARD
Notes
Appendix: Plant Names
References
Index of Poets
Index of Titles and First Lines