The present volume is one of my earliest attempts to trace the similarities that exist among the Romantic literatures of the East and the West. This attempt was made by me in the form of a doctoral dissertation which I submitted to the University of Madras in 1979. Although I tried to bringout this volume during the centenary year of the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati, my efforts failed owing to a number of reasons which I don't like to enumerate here.

I am happy that this volume is now published by the Institute of Asian Studies, which is rendering yeoman services for the promotion of comparative studies in literatures, languages and cultures. I should extend my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Shu Hikosaka, the unfailing friend of my academic pursuits and one of the founders of this Institute, for having encouraged me to publish this volume. My thanks are also due to Dr. Pon. Kothandaraman, Professor of Tamil Literature, University of Madras, under whose able guidance this work was written.

I extend my thanks to the authorities of the University of Madras, for having permitted me to publish this work.

I acknowledge my sincere thanks to Dr. V. Sachithanandan, Dr. S. Prema Nandakumar and Dr. Vijayi Bharati whose works on Bharati have provided me with ample data for this study. I am immensely grateful to Dr. John Ralston Marr, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, for his valuable comments on my original manuscript.

I owe my deep debt of gratitude to Dr. M. Shanmugam Pillai, Dr.R.Rajarathinam and Mr. V. Gowri Shanker who have gone through the script and gave me very good suggestions.

Dr.A. Thasarathan, Mr.S. Shanmuga Velayudham and the staff of the Department of Manuscriptology of the Institute of Asian Studies have assiduously read the proofs and helped me to bringout this work without much mistakes.

My wife Mrs. Indra Samuel deserves my thanks for her constant encouragement in all my academic pursuits. Rina Enterprises Computer Centre deserves my gratitude for the neat execution of the printing work. Mr.A.S. Natarajan, the artist, deserves my appreciation for the excellent cover design.

**Contents and Sample Pages**