Page:Papers in Tamil Literature.pdf/12

2 PAPERS IN TAMIL LITERATURE 'The harking back to the ideal behaviour patterns of an ennobling humanity (Tinai); their varying main currents of activity (Kaikkō!); the speaker (Kūrru) whose expression is the poem; the person to whom the poem is spoken (Kētpōr); the place (Kalan); the time of the poem (Kalam); the resulting effect or purpose of the verse (Payan); the sentiment or emo- tion bubbling forth there; the elliptical construction or the yearning after completion of the sense, at every stage of its pro- gress (Eccam); the context making the meaning (Munnam); the underlying universality (Porul); the ford of the poetic current where the particularity enters into the flow of poetry or the particularity of the poetic aspect of the verse (Turai)" are some of the important constituents of a poem. From this it appears 'that every poem is expected to be spoken by one and addressed to some other, at a particular place and time, inspired by an urge or purpose, and resulting in an effect, the whole speech being aglow with a living major sentiment or emotion or feeling"." Further, Tolkāppiyaṇār stresses that the three units, of action, of time and of place are necessary for a poem. "The unity of all these trinities within the unit of a poetical moment of one dramatic speech and no more'l This is quite clear from every Akam poem which invariably gives a series of illustrative rather than exhaustive poetic situations, where the dramatic personnel may give expression to their lyrical feelings'. Hence every poem may be considered a dramatic monologue. If these poems are rearranged as to make successive narrative, it may result in a connected story of love or war. In this sense all the Akam poems are all dramatic monologues of the lovers or their companions, or the foster-mother or the prostitute or the con- fidant of the hero and others. Tolkāppiyaṇār contemplates in his theory of poetry not any continuous narrative poerty in the form of an epic, but only isolated poems. We find no drama or epic before Cilappatikāram. In those days there were actors, Porunars and dancers. But no drama