REPRESENTATION OF MULLAI TINAI IN THOMAS HARDY’S THE WOODLANDERS AND TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES

Dr. N. Saraswathy Antharjanam
Associate Professor, Department of English, S.D. College, Alappuzha

Vol 17, No 06 ( 2022 )   |  Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.6606977   |   Licensing: CC 4.0   |   Pg no: 14-19   |   Published on: 02-06-2022

Abstract
The correlation of time and place (mutal porul) with natural settings (karu porul) helps to achieve the right projection of human emotions (uriporul). In this context it is possible to conclude that the Wessex landscape in The Woodlanders acts as a tinai. These landscapes and their natural milieu serve as a background for expressing the appropriate phase of love associated with them which helps to rightly convey the mood of the lovers. The description of human emotions in relation to nature and great love and concern for nature connect the English writer Thomas Hardy with the South Indian Cankam poets. This paper attempts to explain the conventional mullai tinai and its echoes in Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The idealized landscape known as tinai, in which akam poetry is based is nucleus to the design of the poems. There are five such landscapes in akam proper, kurinji, marutam, mullai, neytal and palai. Each landscape is named after a flower or tree native to it and each is associated with a season, time of day, specific God, animals, birds, trees, occupation, food, musical instrument, raga, community and hero. Most significantly each landscape is associated with an aspect of love.

Keywords:
Mullai tinai, Hollybush, Cankam, uri porul- emotion, Hintock

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