"Depicting Artist and Viewer: Performed Aesthetics in Kalidasa's Shakuntala"

Ellwood Wiggins, “Depicting Artist and Viewer: Performed Aesthetics in Kālidāsa’s Śakuntalā,” The International Journal of the Arts in Society, 6/6 (Sept. 2012): 179-192.

This essay is a close reading of the instances of ekphrasis and self-referentiality in Kālidāsa’s famous Sanskrit play, The Recognition of Śakuntalā, to flesh out its implied understanding of aestheticsIn displaying both the creation and the enjoyment of art on stage, the play shows how, paradoxically, the "image" is simultaneously prior to both the word and the picture.

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