A History of Sanskrit Literature c24.s5.19

c24.s5.19

Denial of any relation of interdependence is also asserted by L. H. Gray,² who calls attention to many parallels, letters between lovers, long-winded lamentations, threats of suicide, the stories within stories, descriptions of nature, detailed personal descriptions, learned allusions and citations of precedents, even strained compounds, and alliterations, parisoi,³ homoioteleuta, and other figures of rhetoric which recall the Sanskrit Anuprāsa and Yamaka. But he insists that the least part of the Sanskrit romance is the thread of the story or the adventures of its characters; all the stress is laid on rhetorical embellishment, minute description of nature, detailed characterization of exploits, and of mental, moral, and physical qualities. In the Greek romance, on the other hand, the essence is the narrative of one improbable adventure after another, fine writing is practically discarded, description and appreciation of nature are essentially neglected. To the latter assertion there is of course admitted an exception in the case of the *Poimenika* of Longus, but that author derives directly from Theokritos, Bion, and Moschos, while the Sanskrit romance owes its love for nature to Indian feeling. The *Daçakumāracarita* with its affinities to the picaresque romance is without real parallel in the Greek romances, though it has affinities to the *Satirae* of Petronius.