Classical Tamil Prosody: An Introduction

The Author was a Professor of Dravidian Studies at the State University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

This book is dedicated to anyone who wants to read classical Tamil poetry and appreciate it more through a basic knowledge of its form. This book offers an introduction to classical Tamil prosody which should be understood and used as a practical handbook. The contents of this book originated from classes given by the Author in German at the University of Heidelberg.

The Author's note to readers: "Read as much as possible, alound, and with an attempt to understand the structural properties of Tamil poetry. You will be richly awarded; never forget that Tamil is simultaneously a threefold creation (muttamil): the form, the sound, the performance belong to its body as organically as its basic structural units. Hence prosody has a very special place in this threefold organization."

Publisher's note: This book was first published as a hardbound version in 1989. This e-book version is a scanned version of the physical book pages and may not be user-friendly to read in smaller versions of the Kindle reader such as in an iPhone, although it should be easy to read on a larger device such as an iPad or a Kindle Fire Reader. Feel free to download a sample on your preferred device before you purchase the e-Book.