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Kalidasa was a great Indian poet and dramatist. He wrote in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. Kalidasa is sometimes called the Shakespeare of India. Many of his plays and poems have romantic themes. They are remarkable for their description of nature, the elegant style in which they are written, and the powerful imagination of their author. Historians have been able to establish few definite facts about Kalidasa's life. Many think that he was one of the group known as the nine gems. These were men of genius at the court of the Indian king Vikramaditya. This king was Chandragupta II, who reigned from about A.D. 375 to 415. His best-known play, Abhigyana Shakuntala, named after its heroine, is based on a romantic story from the Mahabharata. Kalidasa was also a master of the epic poetry form called kavya. In this tradition, literary style and form tend to assume more importance than the theme of the story. Kalidasa's narrative poem Meghaduta (The Cloud Messenger) describes how a cloud acts as a go-between for two separated lovers. It contains many elaborate descriptions of love and nature. |
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