Nature for "situations", to augment happiness or to increase the tragic note.

The European seasons had been already made to signify, since classical times, analogous changes in man. Spring would stand for youth or rejuvenation, as autumn would signify decay. The Western poets found change and variety in the cycle of the seasons, and anthologies of European poetry could be made under the headings of spring, summer, autumn and winter as anthologies of Tamil poetry could be made under the headings of the five regions. The variety and change that poetry would welcome in the outward face of Nature is not effected by the six seasons of Tamil Naad. Differences there are between the rainy season and the warm summer, but compared with the differences that exist between summer and winter in Europe, our variety here in Tamil Naad is by no means pronounced. In the absence of snow and ice, we lack the chief characteristics of a changing landscape. But the Tamils were equal to this challenge of Nature, The variety and change they did not find in the seasons, they found in landscape. Hence they made landscape the fundamental basis for division and variety, and subordinated the change in the seasons to the difference in landscape. Where European poetry took inspiration from the pageant of the seasons, Tamil poetry based itself on the regions.

The same fundamental idea of making Nature illuminate poetic thought is found in Shakespeare as in the Tamil poets. In Macbeth, for instance, storm reigns supreme. Thunder and lightning are the fitting accompaniments of the witches whenever they make their appearance, while, as in Julius Caesar, murder is portended by a night of elemental fury and by evil omens.

There is the idea of contrast when King Duncan appears with his retinue and finds every aspect pleasing, little aware of what will befall him that night.