A History of Sanskrit Literature c23.s2.7

c23.s2.7

It is natural to compare Sanskrit writers with the Greeks of the Alexandrian age or the post-Augustan Latin poets, and there is no doubt some justice in the parallels drawn between the literatures. They are essentially the outcome of study and of the deliberate and conscious use of older models.¹ But it would be unjust to suggest for a moment that the Sanskrit poets were in general only on the level of the Alexandrians or of Statius. If we allow this to be true of Māgha, it could hardly be asserted of Bhāravi, and Kālidāsa merits comparison with all but the greatest of poets, superior by far to men as able as Ovid and Propertius.¹ Of English writers Tennyson has much in common with him in calmness of outlook and in delicacy of beauty of phrase, coupled with restraint and balance, but Tennyson lacked entirely the dramatic talent which is evinced so remarkably in the *Çakuntalā*.²