Prizes for Tamil Love Poetry: The Five Hundred Short Poems of the Ainkurunuru, an Early Third Century Anthology (Book)

A.K. Ramanujan Prize for Translation [link]
Date: 2/1/2014 12:00:00 AM
Organization: Association for Asian Studies [link]
Abstract: This year's Ramanujan Prize goes to Martha Selby for her gem-like translations in Tamil Love Poetry: The Five Hundred Short Poems of the Ainkurunuru. This anthology, dating to the early decades of the third century C.E., contains 100 poems each by five poets. Although previous scholars have translated individual poems from the collection, Selby's translation of the entire anthology reveals the larger poetic patterns that exist across the 500-poem work, as well as the degree to which the five poets share a set of literary conventions but continue to innovate within their limits. Ainkurunuru presents its poems in groups of ten, and Selby enables the reader to savor the nuances of the five phases of love by preceding each decad with brief insightful comments that show the range of literary strategies in the decad, demonstrating how even small changes in wording can shift the impact of shared imagery in dramatic ways. With impressive skill, Selby manages to convey the extreme conc

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