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Kalidasa's play about the love of King Dusyanta for Sakuntala, a monastic girl, is the supreme work of Sanskrit drama by its greatest poet and playwright (c.4th century CE). Overwhelmingly erotic in tone and in performance, The Recognition of Sakuntala aimed to produce an experience of aesthetic rapture in the audience, comparable to certain types of mystical experience. The pioneering English translation of Sakuntala in 1789 caused a sensation among European composers and writers (including Goethe), and it continues to be performed around the world. This vibrant new verse translation includes the famous version of the story from the Mahabharata, a poetic and dramatic text in its own right and a likely source for Kalidasa. The introduction discusses the play in the aesthetic and cultural context of ancient India.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
- Sales Rank: #123408 in Books
- Published on: 2008-07-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.00" h x .50" w x 7.50" l, .30 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 147 pages
About the Author
W. J. Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, Cardiff University.
Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
A Most Beautiful Play
By Samesh Braroo
Kalidasa is India's greatest Sanskrit poet and playwright. Many centuries after his death, his commitment has not flinched to remain India's most respected bard. When you've read world's greatest plays, you must then read this play for the proverbial dessert. For most people, drama was invented in Greece, yet Kalidasa didn't know that, being apart by sea and time. So far as he is concerned, he was as much an inventor of this art, as were his more famous counterparts.
`Recognition of Sakuntala' is a beautiful love story of a married king with a country girl, his deserting her and eventually reclaiming back, with the aid of providence.
I've several translations of this play, but Johnson's version is probably the best - at least in English.
If Shakespeare or Tolstoy or Munshi Premchand gratify you, Kalidasa will as much.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A hit in Europe around 1789
By Neri
The original translation by Sir William Jones of this famous Indian play was popular accross Europe and read by prominant poets including Goethe and Schiller in the late 1700's. Sir William Jones was also a member of Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke's politically influentual Literary Club and the translation by him, this is not it, was a small hit across Europe. It inspired some stylist influence upon Goethe and Goethe must have read this about the time of the end of his "Italian Journey" where he later gained some creative energy after a dry spell following the massive success of his "Sorrows of Young Werther". (Sir William Jones is most famous today for observing that the similarities in Latin, Sanskrit, Persian, English and other, now called, Indo-European languages could not be just an accident).
This modern translation by W.J. Johnson is a good effort; however, for a variety of reasons loses something in translation as it was written to be performed in at least two languages, Sanskrit and Prakrit, and also involved a lot of body language which at times was almost like a dance. Sir William Jones' translation is more vibrant and historically relevant, and other translations of his of Oriental translations as well as original poems, had an impact on 17th and 18th century European literature.
Jones was a romantic supporter of the American revolution, even meeting with Benjamin Franklin in Paris to attempt a resolution to the crisis and play Franklin a game of chess. Jones' most famous and widely popular poem, while he was alive, was "Caissa, or, The Game of Chess" which would have gotten Jones through many important doors and meetings.
The play "Sakuntala" was written in the 4th or 5th century CE in India and is considered one of India's great plays. It is interesting for the cultural attitudes of India at that time, especially the strong class system, and making comparisons with other cultures around the world. Never-the-less The play still holds its own in translation as something many readers might find poetically brilliant, entertaining, and also funny.
Byron was also a youthful reader of Jones and there are a lot of stylistic similarities between them. Byron even wrote a parady of some of Jones' poems in his youth.
Jones spent his later life, in India, assisting in setting up a legal system for India which Jones insisted should be based in large part on Indian culture and customs. Jones represents a more early liberal, respecting relationship with the colonies of India; not the heavy-handed British paternal one that was to dominate that relationship after Jones' death.
Goethe[[ASIN:0140442332 Italian Journey: 1786-1788 (Penguin Classics)
The Life of Samuel Johnson (Penguin Classics)
Sir William Jones: Selected poetical and prose works - University of Wales Press (Not carried by Amazon)
[...]
(When universities teach diversity they should also teach it from the perspective of history; my professors acted like the 60's generation discovered multiculturialism and cultural appreciation. Why wouldn't a society that appriciates other culturals know the name of Sir William Jones? To me it points at some decrepidy that we don't).
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Youth pushes up through all her limbs
By HH
W. J. Johnson's introductory essay is thorough and informative, pitched at the general reader but never condescending. It begins with a brief outline of what is known of Kalidasa’s life and an assessment of the place of Sakuntala in the canon of world drama. A succinct and illuminating outline of the plot and structure of the play follows. The Recognition of Sakuntala tells the story of the love between King Dusyanta and the beautiful Sakuntala, who lives in the woodland hermitage of her foster father, a devout ascetic called Kanva. Sakuntala and Dusyanta contract a secret “love match” after which the King returns to his court leaving her his ring as a keepsake. Shortly afterward, distracted by thoughts of her lover, Sakuntala neglects her duties of hospitality and becomes the unknowing victim of a curse: her beloved will forget her until she produces some token of recognition. When she subsequently appears at Dusyanta’s court visibly pregnant, she is rejected unrecognised. Even worse, when she tries to produce the ring to prove her story, she discovers that it was lost in her journey. After her public humiliation, Sakuntala vanishes into a heavenly beam of light (provided by her mother, the nymph Menaka). When the missing ring is later found in the belly of a fish, Dusyanta remembers his lost love and is plunged into despair and remorse. He is eventually called into service by Indra, king of the gods, to battle a gang of troublesome demons. On his way home, Dusyanta visits a celestial hermitage where he is fortuitously reunited with Sakuntala and meets his young son—destined to be Bharata, a “world emperor.” Johnson’s summary provides a useful orientation to the world of the play and its style. In a further discussion of the play’s plot and structure, he demonstrates the ways in which six of the seven acts of the play mirror one another with the central fourth act serving as a transition.
Johnson's introduction continues with a discussion of the workings of Sanskrit aesthetic theory (as outlined in the Natyasastra) related to the play and the system of ethics that underpins its action. Here, Johnson addresses important issues of language giving an insightful overview of the cultural and political context reflected in the use of Sanskrit (the classical written language) and Prakrit (common spoken dialects) to delineate different characters and incidents in the play. He also alerts the reader to the gestural language of theatrical performance by means of which this ancient play is still comprehensible to modern audiences. Here he includes a helpful discussion of the levels of language employed in the text, explaining which characters speak what—verse, prose, Sanskrit, or Prakrit—and why. In the course of this he also illustrates how the works of Kalidasa came to be the preserve of Sanskrit scholars rather than remaining popular dramas. All of this serves to explain the reasons why an English translation, however skilled, is unable to effectively communicate the “verbal polyphony” of the original text. It is most useful to approach the play with this understanding. He goes on to provide detailed information on the verse and prose structures of the original and how the assignment of verse speaking reflects the aesthetic of the piece in terms of the rasas (aesthetic “flavors” or “sensations”) revealed and communicated by the play. Where the discussion threatens to become too complex for the non-specialist, the reader is helpfully directed to Johnson’s “Selected Bibliography” for sources of further study.
Again addressing the play as a piece of theater, a section on “Staging and Stage Conventions” explains the four types of representation in conventional Sanskrit drama: spoken word, gesture, costume, and emotion. These elements work together to create a uniquely performative dramatic language that transcends the written word. Johnson describes this as “’spectacle poetry’ as opposed to verbal poetry” (p. xxv). For those unfamiliar with the Indian Kuttiyattam theater tradition, this communicates some idea of the complex meta-text of performance that is a fundamental element of traditional Sanskrit theater.
Johnson intends this version of the play to be performable and says that he seeks to “liberate” the text through this translation. Does he succeed? On balance, I would say that he does. The text is accessible and is helped with excellent notes throughout. The obvious alternation between verse and prose gives some flavor of the complexity of the original without obscuring the drama. The action moves along at a brisk pace and the occasional textual notes are useful without being intrusive. It is a splendid story, beautifully told. The serious scholar might wish for more information -- e.g., to clarify certain elements of ritual -- but Johnson’s notes helpfully direct the reader to more specialist materials.
Following the play, Johnson includes the Sakuntala story from the Mahabharata in his own, lucid translation. It has been usefully condensed to provide only essential information, yet retains a sense of poetry and it is rendered, like the original, in un-rhymed verse. Shakuntala’s drama is just as compelling in the Mahabharata, but appears to be more focused on teaching ethical lessons than on exciting rasa. In this version Dusayanta does recognize Sakuntala when she appears at his court, but refuses to acknowledge her. This allows Sakuntala to offer some important lessons on the power of conscience, and the ritual, spiritual and daily necessity of wives and children (especially sons) for all men. One can see the source of much of the specific action in Kalidasa’s play in the Mahabharata, but Dusayanta’s abuse of Sakuntala seems brutal and unrelenting -- really quite shocking. When a “divine voice” demands Dusayanta’s recognition of his spurned wife, he as able to acknowledge her without engendering popular doubt and suspicion. It is clear that the epic addresses itself to moral lessons and political realities, most particularly the necessity for a king (and his successors) to be seen as legitimate. The play, on the other hand, is a great love story.
This handy and inexpensive edition will be a valuable text for students of Asian Studies, World Literature, or Drama.
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