''The Garden of Kama'' is a book of

lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

published in 1901 and written by

Adela Florence Nicolson Violet Nicolson (9 April 1865 – 4 October 1904; otherwise known as Adela Florence Nicolson (née Cory)), was an English poet who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope, however she became known as Violet Nicolson. In the early 1900s, she bec ...

under the pseudonym Laurence Hope. It was illustrated by

Byam Shaw John Byam Liston Shaw (13 November 1872 – 26 January 1919), commonly known as Byam Shaw, was a British painter, illustrator, designer and teacher. He is not to be confused with his sons, Glen Byam Shaw, actor and theatre director, and James B ...

. The poems in the book were given as translations of Indian poets by a man, as she thought the book would receive much more attention than it would likely have done if she had published it under her own name. The poetry in this volume was characteristic of all of Nicolson's poems, making liberal use of the imagery and symbols from the poets of the North-West Frontier of India and the

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

poets of

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. The poems are typically about

unrequited love Unrequited love or one-sided love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such by the beloved. The beloved may not be aware of the admirer's deep and pure affection, or may consciously reject it. The Merriam Webster Online Dic ...

and loss. The book was initially praised upon its release by many prominent poets,

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

among them, although some reviewers were uncertain about the authenticity of the translations. James Darmesteter, Professor of Persian at the prestigious College de France, Paris, embarrassingly documented that the images used by the supposed frontier bards were in reality symbols of the latent Sufi nature of their songs. They were later exposed as being original works from the West, although partly inspired by the Sufi. The book was published in America in 1927 as ''India's Love Lyrics''.

References

*"Violet Nicolson." Marx, Edward. An Encyclopedia of British Women Writers. Ed. Paul Schlueter and June Schlueter. New York: Garland, 1999

External links

Laurence HopeEtext of ''India's Love Lyrics'' from Project GutenbergLAURENCE HOPE
on ''poetry nook'' * * {{librivox book , title=India's Love Lyrics, author=Hope 1901 books English poetry collections Works published under a pseudonym

See also

References

External links