Rewiring the Paradox: Establishing Shakespeare as the “Kalidasa of United Kingdom”

  • Unique Paper ID: 184273
  • PageNo: 2746-2751
  • Abstract:
  • Literary doyens Mahakavi Kalidasa and William Shakespeare have left a permanent mark in the tapestry of literature with their writings that are churned in excellence. Despite being separated by nearly nine centuries, Shakespeare and Kalidasa exhibit notable similarities in their writings, perhaps prompting William Jones to dub Kalidasa the "Shakespeare of India." However, the validity of such Western-centric notions in this post-colonial era should be questioned. This study challenges this established paradigm by proposing a complete 180-degree reversal and thus asserting Shakespeare as the "Kalidasa of the United Kingdom”. To substantiate this claim, it employs a comparative lens of Indian and Western aesthetics on the works of Kalidasa and Shakespeare and further analyses the validity of this claim through the theories of Postcolonialism and Deconstruction. While recent scholarly endeavors have engaged in comparative analyses of specialized topics related to Kalidasa and Shakespeare, there remains a paucity of attempts to question Shakespeare's perceived superiority over Kalidasa. The field cultivating Kalidasa and Shakespeare together is therefore rich, but not definitive, and more attention to this research gap is now due.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{184273,
        author = {Manini Jain},
        title = {Rewiring the Paradox: Establishing Shakespeare as the “Kalidasa of United Kingdom”},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {4},
        pages = {2746-2751},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=184273},
        abstract = {Literary doyens Mahakavi Kalidasa and William Shakespeare have left a permanent mark in the tapestry of literature with their writings that are churned in excellence. Despite being separated by nearly nine centuries, Shakespeare and Kalidasa exhibit notable similarities in their writings, perhaps prompting William Jones to dub Kalidasa the "Shakespeare of India." However, the validity of such Western-centric notions in this post-colonial era should be questioned.  This study challenges this established paradigm by proposing a complete 180-degree reversal and thus asserting Shakespeare as the "Kalidasa of the United Kingdom”. To substantiate this claim, it employs a comparative lens of Indian and Western aesthetics on the works of Kalidasa and Shakespeare and further analyses the validity of this claim through the theories of Postcolonialism and Deconstruction. While recent scholarly endeavors have engaged in comparative analyses of specialized topics related to Kalidasa and Shakespeare, there remains a paucity of attempts to question Shakespeare's perceived superiority over Kalidasa. The field cultivating Kalidasa and Shakespeare together is therefore rich, but not definitive, and more attention to this research gap is now due.},
        keywords = {Shakespeare, Kalidasa, Paradigm Reversal, Aesthetics, Postcolonialism, Deconstruction.},
        month = {September},
        }

Cite This Article

Jain, M. (2025). Rewiring the Paradox: Establishing Shakespeare as the “Kalidasa of United Kingdom”. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 12(4), 2746–2751.

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