Pathetic fallacy and apostrophes are not too common in Cankam poetry and the absence of these figures of speech are due to a realistic approach to Nature. Lines like these in which the river is said to be the tears of the mountain in sympathy with the heroine, are not too common either.13 There are short addresses to the ocean, to the cloud, to the sun and moon, to the bee, to the bird, scattered especially in Kuṛuntokai and the Kalittokai. Of all the apostrophes there is none so tender and full of pathos as the address by the poet to the jasmine quoted in the previous chapter. But the sympathy of Nature is made through suggestion and suggestiveness. Two figures of speech, the allegory and suggestion are used to the greatest advantage by the poet. The allegory as used in akam poems is a characteristic feature of Tamil poetry. In the study of a Tamil poem it is necessary to understand not only what the poets say directly, but also what they subtly imply, and what they wish the hearer to understand as implied. The Cankam poets did not confine their poetry to a special locality. They treated of all classes of men and women and of all regions they knew. Though their akam poetry deals with the ideal and heroic; though they take the best of a type as hero and heroine, a chief and the daughter of a chief, they are always conscious of the fact that in the exuberance of love, every lad is a king and every lass a queen. A study of landscape as was enjoined on the Tamil poets meant also a study of the occupations and lives of the people that were indigenous to the landscape. Humani nihil a me alienum puto was as much a motto to the Tamil poets as to Terence. A Tamil line deserves to be as famous as the Latin one of Terence. Every village is my village, every man is my kinsman. | (Puram; 192, 1) |
Therefore they did not treat only of kings and queens, cities and palaces. They found poetry in the fishers’ lowly huts and in the dwellings of mountain peoples. The fisher-woman ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13 Nar; 88. |