A Gift of Tamil

The earliest Tamil poetry (ca. 100-300 C.E.) was collected into two kinds of anthologies: the poems concerned with the inner world of love and intimacy and the poems concerned with the outer world of public life, war, and conflicts about honor. Translations from these anthologies appear in the section of this volume titled ‘Classical Poetry’. The section ‘Wisdom Literature’ contains translated excerpts from Tirukkural, a work composed of couplets on the nature of virtue and the proper way to live one’s life. Selections from two extended narratives can be found in the section titled ‘Long Narrative Poems’. ‘Devotional Poetry’ includes a variety of poetry from the Hindu bhakti tradition representing different genres and poets from different sectarian traditions. Stories collected in Tamil villages appear in the section on ‘Folk Literature’. Finally, ‘Modern Literature’ contains a varied set of selections from both prose poetry and short stories.