APRIL 5, 1872.]
TAMIL POPULAR POETRY.
97
TAMIL POPULAR POETRY. By ROBERT CHARLES CALDWELL, M.R.A.S.
First Paper.
HE number of Europeans in South India possessing a fair knowledge of common
direct effect of urging them to adopt a strained
Tamil is not inconsiderable. Yet I have always
thought it worth their while to make themselves acquainted with one or two of the popular Tamil poets, just to gain thereby a little insight into
In the second place, I can assert with con fidence, and I trust I shall be able to prove, in this and in a subsequent paper, that Tamil po pular poetry is full of really beautiful fancies, similes, metaphors, aphorisms, and thoughts.
Hindu customs, Hindu characteristics, Hindu
And I hold—and I trust I shall be able to con
fancies, and Hindu creeds. Now I feel certain that popular Tamil poetry would be far more widely studied by such Tamil-speaking Euro peans, were it not for two considerations. In the first place, it is supposed that these poems— merely because they are Tamil poems—do not possess such inherent beauty of thought, fan cy, or expression, as we Europeans understand beauty in literary compositions, to repay the labour of their perusal by a cultivated reader acquainted with the splendid and sublime liter atures of Europe. In the second place, it is imagined that to peruse, so as to understand and appreciate these poems, is a matter of great diffi culty, and that these popular lyrics are couched in the same difficult language as nearly all the great poetical works in Tamil are.
vince the reader that I am right in holding—that Tamil popular poetry contains gems of art of which any European language might be proud. In this introductory paper my aim is to prove a portion of this thesis to the best of my ability, without entering at any length into the very wide field of discussion which will present itself in connection with my subject. I shall only take a few—a very few—instances of the beautiful
remarked with wonder how few of these have
With reference to the latter of these two
suppositions, I beg to submit that popular Tamil poetry is written, as a general rule, in clear, plain, mellifluous Tamil. Stanzas here and there may be met with, containing verbal difficulties.
But supposing, in the first place, the reader is bent, not upon a critical study of such poems, but upon a lighter course, and merely wishes to run through them for his amusement and in formation,-then, in the majority of instances, he will find these poems intelligible on their first perusal. Indeed, I have repeatedly noticed that, with
scarcely any exceptions, stanzas in the
works of popular Tamil poets are most beauti ful in the thoughts they contain, when the language in which these thoughts are ex pressed is simple and not stilted. Poets, such as Siva WAKKIYAR, PATTANATU PILLA1, and PUTTIRA GIRIYAR generally—as far as it ap pears to me—betake themselves to difficult phraseology and intricate involutions of style,
and affected manner.
thoughts embodied in poetical language to be
found amongst the immense stores at every Tamil scholar's disposal. The difficulty which meets me when about to treat of this subject is,
not what specimens of Tamil poetical writing I ought to select, but what striking examples I ought not to select. The abundance of materials at my disposal makes me hesitate and almost wish that the garden were smaller from which I have undertaken to cull a few flowers.
But, before proceeding further, I wish the read er to consider one important point regarding my subject. It must be remembered that I am trans lating ; and that upon which I base my argument is translated poetry. Take up the best transla tions the English language possesses; take up Chapman's Homer, Connington's Virgil, or Cary's Dante,_suppose these translations had appeared as original poems in English, would they have be come celebrated 2 Perhaps as literary curiosities they might, but would they have passed into the household literature of England and left such a
mark upon English literature as their originals have upon the literatures of Greece and of Rome? It is impossible to answer this in the affirmative. And the reason for this lies in the very nature of the case.
In the first place, the subject of such poems is of no national interest to Englishmen.
It
is like olives—it requires a trained taste in trashy sentiment. It seems as if consciousness an Englishman to appreciate it, whilst a Greek, of poverty and weakness in matter, had the or an Italian, might take to it naturally, as it is
when they are giving utterance to some trite or
