comes into view and where Nature is brought into relationship with man. Apart from the historical examination of the evolution of man’s appreciation of Nature, we may analyse the different ways in which poets may deal with Nature. Though in some respects this coincides with the matter of the previous paragraph, yet the examination shows that poets of the same epoch may see Nature from different aspects. There is the simple interpretation which is just child-like joy in the presence of Nature without any intellectual or moral elements entering into the treatment. Superficially akin to this enjoyment but essentially quite different from it, is the “sensuous” enjoyment of Nature, when the poet is engrossed in the material beauty of the universe as mere material beauty. Keats is often presented as such a poet. He differed from Wordsworth and Shelley in his treatment of Nature, and no English poet of his time described pure “sensuous” beauty as he did.5 Nature may be used also as a mere source of imagery and illustration, as a rich store-house of objects to supply similes and metaphors. Or it may be made to supply its greatest interest when associated with human events, or when viewed as the background or setting to human emotion and human action.6 Since the earliest Tamil poetry that has come down to us is generally the product of a civilized period and of a well-established culture, it is not surprising that its interpretation of Nature does not contain the simple or the utilitarian appreciation as the prominent characteristic. When the Cankam classics came into being, Tamil poetry had already for many years reached the last and final stage of its evolution in the poetic appreciation of Nature. Lines do occur which express simple joy at the coolness of water, the pleasures of shade and bower, child-like joy at the sight or the use of flowers; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5 See VIETCH, The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry summarized in FREDERIC W.MOORMAN, O.C. p. 5; W. H.HUDSON, An Introduction to the Study of Literature. Appendix II, On the Treatment of Nature in Poetry, pp. 319-331, London, 1945. 6 See SHAIRP’S views in The Poetic Interpretation of Nature improved on by Hudson, o.c. ibid. |