Overview

A full-length study and new translation of the great Sanskrit poet Kalidasa's famed Meghaduta (literally ""The Cloud Messenger,"") The Cloud of Longing focuses on the poem's interfacing of nature, feeling, figuration, and mythic memory. This work is unique in its attention given to the natural world in light of the nexus of language and love that is the chief characteristic (lakshana) of the poem. Along with a scrupulous study of the approximately 111 verses of the poem, The Cloud of Longing offers an extended look at how nature was envisioned by classical India's supreme poet as he portrays a cloud's imagined voyage over the fields, valleys, rivers, mountains, and towns of classical India. This sustained, close reading of the Meghaduta will speak to contemporary readers as well as to those committed to developing a more in-depth experience of the natural world. The Cloud of Longing fills a gap in the translation of classical Indian texts, as well as in studies of world literature, religion, and into an emerging integrative environmental discipline.

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9780197566633

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Jarow has done justice like none other to the Meghad?ta, a masterpiece of world literature that casts its shadow and rings in echoes throughout all subsequent Sanskrit works. Jarow's elegant translation is followed with insights not only into the delicate versification of K=alid=asa's work but observations on its message: 'The lovers sees the beloved everywhere.' 'What if... the poetic perception of reality is closer to what actually is than the calculating, measuring one?' Borrowing from William Carlos Williams, Jarow suggests that the poet makes meaning 'not in ideas, but in things.' Bravo! -- Christopher Key Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology, Loyola Marymount University Every generation requires literate translators capable of capturing the subtlety of a classic and bringing it into synchrony with the times. Jarow has accomplished this brilliantly for K=alid=asa's Meghad?ta or Cloud Messenger, often considered the apogee of Sanskrit poetry. Depicting the world from the perspective of a cloud asked by a benevolent nature-spirit (yak=.sa) to deliver a message to his wife in the high Himalayas, the Meghad?ta was composed in Ujj=ayin=i, present day Ujjain, in central India, around 375 CE. Here Jarow describes the rasa or aesthetic flavor that permeates the poem. With this message, as if transmitted on a cloud, the sensitive and appreciative reader (rasika) will enter into deeper connection with K=alid=asa's world, into his vision of the mysteries of the unity and multiplicity of the self within the natural world. -- Frederick M. Smith, Professor, Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religions, University of Iowa

Jarow has done justice like none other to the Meghaduta, a masterpiece of world literature that casts its shadow and rings in echoes throughout all subsequent Sanskrit works. Jarow's elegant translation is followed with insights not only into the delicate versification of Kalidasa's work but observations on its message: 'The lovers sees the beloved everywhere.' 'What if... the poetic perception of reality is closer to what actually is than the calculating, measuring one?' Borrowing from William Carlos Williams, Jarow suggests that the poet makes meaning 'not in ideas, but in things.' Bravo! -- Christopher Key Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology, Loyola Marymount University Every generation requires literate translators capable of capturing the subtlety of a classic and bringing it into synchrony with the times. Jarow has accomplished this brilliantly for Kalidasa's Meghaduta or Cloud Messenger, often considered the apogee of Sanskrit poetry. Depicting the world from the perspective of a cloud asked by a benevolent nature-spirit (yak=.sa) to deliver a message to his wife in the high Himalayas, the Meghaduta was composed in Ujjayini, present day Ujjain, in central India, around 375 CE. Here Jarow describes the rasa or aesthetic flavor that permeates the poem. With this message, as if transmitted on a cloud, the sensitive and appreciative reader (rasika) will enter into deeper connection with Kalidasa's world, into his vision of the mysteries of the unity and multiplicity of the self within the natural world. -- Frederick M. Smith, Professor, Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religions, University of Iowa

Rick Jarow's The Cloud of Longing is an interesting mediation on poetry and nature that offers new ways of understanding Ka¯&lida¯&sa's vision of nature as a dynamic convergence of a geographical landscape with poetic imagination, myth, and longing. * Anusha Rao, The Journal of Religion *

Jarow has done justice like none other to the Meghaduta, a masterpiece of world literature that casts its shadow and rings in echoes throughout all subsequent Sanskrit works. Jarow's elegant translation is followed with insights not only into the delicate versification of Kalidasa's work but observations on its message: 'The lovers sees the beloved everywhere.' 'What if... the poetic perception of reality is closer to what actually is than the calculating, measuring one?' Borrowing from William Carlos Williams, Jarow suggests that the poet makes meaning 'not in ideas, but in things.' Bravo! -- Christopher Key Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology, Loyola Marymount University Every generation requires literate translators capable of capturing the subtlety of a classic and bringing it into synchrony with the times. Jarow has accomplished this brilliantly for Kalidasa's Meghaduta or Cloud Messenger, often considered the apogee of Sanskrit poetry. Depicting the world from the perspective of a cloud asked by a benevolent nature-spirit (yak=.sa) to deliver a message to his wife in the high Himalayas, the Meghaduta was composed in Ujjayini, present day Ujjain, in central India, around 375 CE. Here Jarow describes the rasa or aesthetic flavor that permeates the poem. With this message, as if transmitted on a cloud, the sensitive and appreciative reader (rasika) will enter into deeper connection with Kalidasa's world, into his vision of the mysteries of the unity and multiplicity of the self within the natural world. -- Frederick M. Smith, Professor, Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religions, University of Iowa

Jarow has done justice like none other to the Meghad?ta, a masterpiece of world literature that casts its shadow and rings in echoes throughout all subsequent Sanskrit works. Jarow's elegant translation is followed with insights not only into the delicate versification of K?lid?sa's work but observations on its message: 'The lovers sees the beloved everywhere.' 'What if... the poetic perception of reality is closer to what actually is than the calculating, measuring one?' Borrowing from William Carlos Williams, Jarow suggests that the poet makes meaning 'not in ideas, but in things.' Bravo! -- Christopher Key Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology, Loyola Marymount University Every generation requires literate translators capable of capturing the subtlety of a classic and bringing it into synchrony with the times. Jarow has accomplished this brilliantly for K?lid?sa's Meghad?ta or Cloud Messenger, often considered the apogee of Sanskrit poetry. Depicting the world from the perspective of a cloud asked by a benevolent nature-spirit (yak=.sa) to deliver a message to his wife in the high Himalayas, the Meghad?ta was composed in Ujj?yin?, present day Ujjain, in central India, around 375 CE. Here Jarow describes the rasa or aesthetic flavor that permeates the poem. With this message, as if transmitted on a cloud, the sensitive and appreciative reader (rasika) will enter into deeper connection with K?lid?sa's world, into his vision of the mysteries of the unity and multiplicity of the self within the natural world. -- Frederick M. Smith, Professor, Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religions, University of Iowa

Author Information

E. H. Rick Jarow is Associate Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Vassar College. He is the author of Tales for the Dying: The Death Narrative of the Bhagavata-Purana and has numerous published articles on Indology, Kalidasa and on the reception of Indian texts in the West.

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