Landscapes of Feelings: Addressing Nature in Search of the Beloved (Nalopākhyāna, Rāmāyana, Vikramorvaśīya)

From the Itihāsas up to classical kāvya, the depictions of the natural environment seem to be formulated according to a definite series of literary patterns, strictly connected with the emotional and sentimental states that the poets mean to represent and evoke. In one typology of these “landscapes of feelings” (as we may call them), the character, in despair at having lost his (or her) beloved, directly addresses the natural elements of the forest, asking them for help. From the Nalopākhyāna of the Mahābhārata to Book III of the Rāmāyaṇa, and to its classical kāvya formulation in Act IV of the Vikramorvaśīya of Kālidāsa, this topos goes through a long literary process, but it retains some of its basic features, which are developed and enriched along the way.