The Recognition of Sakuntala

After having read the first ten pages of Kalidasa's The Recognition of Sakuntala, I was completely confused as to what was occurring in the plot. So I used the same method as when we were instructed to read Oedipus: I read a brief plot summary for The Recognition of Sakuntala in order to have an idea of the storyline before I continued reading. So I realized that the play is focused around a hermit girl named Sakuntala who is cursed by an old sage so that her lover King Dushyanta forgets that she exists. Sakuntala's only evidence for Dushyanta to remember her is this ring, but the ring slips off her finger as she is crossing the river. Dushyanta realizes that Sakuntala is his wife, but he is too late. He goes to heaven and returns to the earth years later to find both his wife Sakuntala and their son.

We discussed various elements which made this play last through the years. We thought that the use of the prose among the dialogue helped to set the scene in an artful way. So the dialogue was the language used for people to understand the play's events and the prose was to further the dialogue by providing more details. Even though Kalidasa preceded Shakespere, we felt that they both utilized the idea of universal themes in their plays. This is evident as both Kalidasa and Shakespere deal with characters who fall in love but are separated usually by fate. This idea is evident in Shakepere's Romeo and Juliet when Romeo and Juliet are separated from birth because of their families. In Kalidasa's The Recognition of Sakuntala, Sakuntala is cursed by a sage that causes her husband to forget her. It just so happens that she loses the ring, the only token that can bond them together. Although Kalidasa's works are from the 4th to 7th centuries, we can still read and understand the meanings today because of such universal themes that link the literature of the past and present.