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