.
.
..
most highly
cultivated
high
degree of culture
tamil
alone stands apart
unbroken
literary traditions
most
primitive language
telgraphic
transmission
oldest
language
tolkappiyam
nedunalvaadail
melodious
language
exception
of tamil
most elaborate
philosophical
literature
reacted
on Aryan thought.
tamil trade
most intellectual
people
cradle
of human race
most important
original
inhabitants
neolithic
culture.
tamil architecture
tamil culture
STATUS OF
TAMILGeorge L. Hart
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EXCEPTION OF TAMIL
About Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam literatures
we may say with K.A. Nilakanta Sastri: "All these literatures owed a great
deal to Sanskrit, the magic band of whose touch alone raised each of the
Dravidian languages (but here I would most definitely add: with the exceptions
of Tamil, KAMIL ZVELEBIL) from the level of a patois to that of a literary
idiom".
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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EXCEPT TAMIL
All other Dravidian literatures with the exception
of Tamil be- gin by adopting a model in subject matter, themes, forms,
in prosody, poetics, metaphors, etc. only the language is different; in
spite of the attempts of some Indian scholars to prove that there werethat
m~st have been-indigenous, "Dravidian", pre-Aryan traditions, lit erary
traditions in the great language of the South, it is extremely hard to
find traces of these traditions, and such attempts are more speculative
than strictly scientific.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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.TAMIL
POEMS REFLECT THE ENTIRE SCALE OF HUMAN
For the old Tamil classical poet, there were fourteen
basic hu man situations, suitable for poetic treatment, which were based
on a unified conception of the universe, which comprised both the "numeric"
and the "phenomenon", and which, using the principle of economy and technique
of concentration, reflected the entire scale and spectre of human experience.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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CONVENTIONAL FORMULAE
The poetry of the classical Tam il age is a sophisticated
poetry, full of conventional formulae, based on traditional subject-matter,
on traditional similes, metaphors, allusions and suggestions.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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FULLY INDIGENOUS
The earliest literature in Tamil is a model unto
itself it is abso tely unique in the sense that, in subject matter, thought
content, nguage and form it is entirely and fully indigenous, that is,
Tamil,or, we want (though I dislike this term when talking about literature),
Dravidian.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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A VERY HIGH STANDARD LITERARY THEORY
It is only the Tamil Culture that has produced-unique
so in India an independent, indigenous literary theory of a very high standard,
icluding metrics and prosody, poetics and rhetoric.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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OPEN TO THE WORLD
The classical Tamil Poet is, first of all, par
excellence, an "objective" type, open to the world, obliterating his concrete
personality, with a very weak or almost non-existent element of personal
expression, like the poet of the Renaissance age, like the bard of chivalric
romances.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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EARLIEST NOETIC SYSTEM
The problem of the dating of Tolkappiyam is an
extremely diffi cult one. It has to be attacked, though, since we would
like to have at least an approximate chronology of the work which manifests
the first conceptual framework and the earliest noetic system of a culture
which is part of the world's great classical civilisations.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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NO FOREIGN IMAGERY
The early classical Tamil poets take their inspiration
straight from nature and experience; in a way, they creatively copy nature
and life. This means that they do not use foreign, borrowed imagery.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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LITERARY HERITAGE OF THE WORLD
Above all I believe that the outstanding works
of Tamil literature of the past, and the very interesting writings of the
times, should be tranlated, published and spread wide; they intrinsically
belong t the literary heritage of the world and man's culture will be enriche
by their general knowledge.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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CONVENTIONAL
In every classical Tamil poem, diagnostic features
are present which, to an informed listener and reader, reveal immediately
the type of tinai and theme in which the poem is composed, They are conventional
and traditional. There is great fixity, great stylization. The poet is
obliged to abide by traditions.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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NO FOREIGN EXAGGERATION
The two typical features of the descriptive technique
employed by early Tamil classical poets, ar~e terseness and concentration.
The descriptions are intensive, never extensive; acute, accurate and sharp,
never elaborate and full, never "from head to foot". This technique gives
no room for exaggeration, so typical of Sanskrit poetry, and of late, medieval
Tamil literature.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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FULLY COMMENSURABLE IN QUALITY
I disagree with the conception that early classical
( Sangam) poetry was 'democratic in spirit". I believe that this poetry
the best which has ever been composed in the Tamil language is basically
aristocratic and early feudal in outlook and bardic and channish in origin.
Judging it purely aesthetically I believe that it is fully com mensurable
in quality with the very peaks of world lyrical poetry, specially of the
"objective" and "professional" type.
DR. KAMIL ZVELEBIL
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