சாகுந்தல நாடக ஆராய்ச்சி
5
have been reading critically not only the plays of Kalidasa and Shakespeare but also the commentaries on their plays. Unfortunately in the whole range of either Sanscrit or English Literature I could not meet even a single commentary on Kalidasa's dramas that is worth mentioning along side of the very interesting and illuminating Shakespearian commentaries produced by Ulrici, Gervinus, Schlegel, Swinburne, Dowden, Brooke, Bradley, Symons, Hudson, Moulton, Corson, Brandes and others. In this life no one can experience a pleasure comparable in its height, amount and intensity to the intel- lectual and aesthetic pleasure which a study of these celebrated com- mentaries afford. The pleasure given by these is equal only to that yielded by the plays themselves, nay, I may venture to say it is even a degree higher than that. In this class of brilliant Shakespearian com- mentaries must be included also J.A. Symond's critical estimates both of the British dramatists and of the old Greek tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, since these mark an epoch of higher dra- matic criticism.
The great literary pleasure experienced in the study of these Shakespearian commentaries, impelled me to attempt after their model a deep and discriminating study of the dramatic art of Kalidasa, a Tamil translation of whose mature production the Sakuntala I pro- duced in the year 1906 and a second edition of which is now issued with notes and the following critique which embodies the results of my study. This and my similar critical commentaries on the ancient Tamil Idylls the Mullaippattu, and the Pattinappalai, I believe, may serve to remove to a certain extent the reproach that the modern Tamil literature is sadly barren of higher critical prose writings. If the reader finds this my claim justifiable, I shall consider my labour as sufficiently recompensed.
In the following critique, besides showing the merits of Kalidasa's dramatic art, I have also fixed his date in the first half of the fifth century A.D. basing it on the indisputable epigraphical evi- dence and co-ordianting this evidence by that afforded by the work itself.
