is true that some western critics have spoken of his
disfiguring conceits and puerile plays on words. One can only wonder
whether these critics have ever read Elizabethan literature; for
Kalidasa's style is far less obnoxious to such condemnation than
Shakespeare's. That he had a rich and glowing imagination, "excelling
in metaphor," as the Hindus themselves affirm, is indeed true; that he
may, both in youth and age, have written lines which would not have
passed his scrutiny in the vigour of manhood, it is not worth while to
deny: yet the total effect left by his poetry is one of extraordinary
sureness and delicacy of taste. This is scarcely a matter for
argument; a reader can do no more than state his own subjective
impression, though he is glad to find that impression confirmed by the
unanimous authority of fifty generations of Hindus, surely the most
competent judges on such a point.

Analysis of Kalidasa's writings might easily be continued, but
analysis can never explain life. The only real criticism is
subjective. We know that Kalidasa is a very great poet, because the
world has not been able to leave him alone.

ARTHUR W. RYDER.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

On Kalidasa's life and writings may be consulted A.A. Macdonell's
_History of Sanskrit Literature_ (1900); the same author's article
"Kalidasa" in the eleventh edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_
(1910); and Sylvain Levi's _Le Theatre Indien_ (1890).

The more important translations in English are the following: of the
_Shakuntala_, by Sir William Jones (1789) and Monier Williams (fifth
edition, 1887); of the _Urvashi_, by H.H. Wilson (in his _Select
Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus_, third edition, 1871); of _The
Dynasty of Raghu_, by P. de Lacy Johnstone (1902); of _The Birth of
The War-god_ (cantos one to seven), by Ralph T.H. Griffith (second
edition, 1879); of _The Cloud-Messenger_, by H.H. Wilson (1813).

There is an inexpensive reprint of Jones's _Shakuntala_ and Wilson's
_Cloud-Messenger_ in one volume in the Camelot Series.

KALIDASA

An ancient heathen poet, loving more
God's creatures, and His women, and His flowers
Than we who boast of consecrated powers;
Still lavishing his unexhausted store

Of love's deep, simple wisdom, healing o'er
The world's old sorrows, India's griefs and ours;
That healing love he found in palace towers,
On mountain, plain, and dark, sea-belted shore,

In songs of holy Raghu