Cloud of Longing

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