peal to the hallowed association
that cluster round the great name of Rama, but devotes two-thirds of
it to themes that permit him greater freedom. The result is a formless
plot.

This is a real weakness, yet not a fatal weakness. In general,
literary critics lay far too much emphasis on plot. Of the elements
that make a great book, two, style and presentation of character,
hardly permit critical analysis. The third, plot, does permit such
analysis. Therefore the analyst overrates its importance. It is fatal
to all claim of greatness in a narrative if it is shown to have a bad
style or to be without interesting characters. It is not fatal if it
is shown that the plot is rambling. In recent literature it is easy to
find truly great narratives in which the plot leaves much to be
desired. We may cite the _Pickwick Papers, Les Miserables, War and
Peace_.

We must then regard _The Dynasty of Raghu_ as a poem in which single
episodes take a stronger hold upon the reader than does the unfolding
of an ingenious plot. In some degree, this is true of all long poems.
The _AEneid_ itself, the most perfect long poem ever written, has dull
passages. And when this allowance is made, what wonderful passages we
have in Kalidasa's poem! One hardly knows which of them makes the
strongest appeal, so many are they and so varied. There is the
description of the small boy Raghu in the third canto, the choice of
the princess in the sixth, the lament of King Aja in the eighth, the
story of Dasharatha and the hermit youth in the ninth, the account of
the ruined city in the sixteenth. Besides these, the Rama cantos, ten
to fifteen, make an epic within an epic. And if Kalidasa is not seen
at his very best here, yet his second best is of a higher quality than
the best of others. Also, the Rama story is so moving that a mere
allusion to it stirs like a sentimental memory of childhood. It has
the usual qualities of a good epic story: abundance of travel and
fighting and adventure and magic interweaving of human with
superhuman, but it has more than this. In both hero and heroine there
is real development of character. Odysseus and AEneas do not grow; they
go through adventures. But King Rama, torn between love for his wife
and duty to his subjects, is almost a different person from the
handsome, light-hearted prince who won his bride by breaking Shiva's
bow. Sita, faithful to the husband who rejects her, has made a long,
character-forming journey