Download or read book Tamil Love Poetry written by Martha Ann Selby and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dating from the early decades of the third century C.E., the Ainkurunuru is believed to be the earliest anthology of classical Tamil love poetry and known to be a work of enduring importance. Commissioned by a Cera-dynasty king and composed by five masterful poets, the anthology renders the five landscapes of reciprocal love distinctive to the genre: jealous quarreling, anxious waiting and lamentation, clandestine love before marriage, elopement and love in separation, and patient waiting after marriage. Despite its centrality to literary and intellectual traditions, the Ainkurunur.