The Miltonic Inheritance: Similes in Ilamnilavan’s Mahakaviyam (2)

Many of Milton’s similes are famously expansive. Indeed, the longest epic simile in John Milton’s Paradise Lost—found in Book I, lines 301–315—compares the fallen angels to the autumnal leaves of Vallombrosa, expanding into vivid imagery of floating sedge and Pharaoh’s drowned army. Inspired by Milton, the Tamil epic poet Ilamnilavan extends epic similes in his mega-epic poem Mahakaviyam (2026) to twenty lines and beyond. Yet, for Milton, whose imagination and erudition are virtually inexhaustible, length alone is never the sole criterion of an epic simile. Even within a single line, he can forge a simile that reverberates like thunder and flashes like lightning across the epic expanse, illuminating myriads of meanings and resonating throughout the entire work.

In Book II of Paradise Lost, as Satan attempts to escape Hell, he encounters Death at the gates. Milton describes Satan’s formidable presence:

“… on th’ other side

Incenst with indignation Satan stood

prosecution Unterrifi’d, and like a Comet burn’d,

That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge

In th’ Artick Sky, and from his horrid hair

Shakes Pestilence and Warr.” (II.706–711)

Here, Milton likens Satan to a blazing comet whose ‘horrid hair’ shakes forth pestilence and war. Historically and mythologically, the appearance of a comet was regarded as a dire omen, signifying imminent death, catastrophe, and ruin for monarchs and nations alike. Throughout Paradise Lost, Satan consistently functions as this harbinger of doom; his entry into the newly created Earth immediately introduces death, the loss of Eden, and humanity’s fall. Through this singular comet metaphor, Milton achieves a colossal scope—transforming a brief, concentrated image into a reverberating epic simile that echoes across the entire thematic landscape of the poem

Milton frequently integrates cosmic and astronomical imagery to elevate his tropes to epic dimensions. To convey the immense scale, physical grandeur, and moral complexity of Satan and the fallen angels, Paradise Lost draws upon a vastly expanded horizon of celestial phenomena—ranging from stars, constellations, and eclipses to the sun and ‘fiery elves.’ For instance, the imperial banner of Satan’s host ‘Shon like a Meteor streaming to the Wind’ (I.537), while his massive shield is likened to ‘the Moon, whose Orb / Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views’ (I.287–288). By framing the infernal forces through these grand, cosmic metaphors, Milton transforms individual images into echoing, universe-spanning epic motifs.

Drawing profound inspiration from Milton’s epic masterworks, the Tamil poet Ilamnilavan similarly expands concise, one- or two-line comparisons into full-fledged epic similes of monumental proportions in his mega-epic, Mahakaviyam. A striking example of this cosmic scale occurs in Canto VI, Chapter 9 (lines 9–10). Written in Ensir Virutham—a meter consisting of eight metrical feet per line—these expansive lines possess both the rhythmic weight and the thematic breadth required to sustain an epic simile of vast, cosmic dimensions:

At last the child, soft as  a flower, stops its cry;

The disturbed star now shuts its eyes.

Upon the withered stalk, where life seems fled,

The aphid gains its wings above the dead—

Doth not the Universal Mind retain such things in sight?

A miracle of grace that shines on The Road of ruins!

In just two lines, Ilamnilavan constructs a vast cosmic drama unfolding in a midnight cremation ground. A helpless infant lies upon the muddy earth, plucked like a delicate flower destined to wither, while her mother’s body is consumed on the pyre above. Deprived of her mother’s warmth, the child is cast into utter darkness beneath the watchful, troubled gaze of a distant star. To illuminate this dark scene, the poet invokes fundamental laws of universal providence—echoing Francis Thompson’s famous sentiment, ‘Thou canst not stir a flower / Without troubling of a star.’ Just as a wingless aphid undergoes metamorphosis to gain wings when its host plant dies, the Universal Mind observes human suffering and extends its saving grace.

Remarkably, Ilamnilavan substantiates his epic simile by weaving entire literary works into its narrative framework. Here, he evokes the climax of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, in which an orphaned child stands alone on a desolate highway following his father’s death, only to be unexpectedly rescued and adopted by a passing family. Similarly, amidst the ashes of the cremation ground, eternal providence intervenes: three strangers—unrelated to one another—arrive at the scene. One of the women gently lifts the weeping infant onto her shoulder, comforting the child as the distant, disturbed star finally closes its eyes in relief. In a further turn of grace, the woman herself is taken as a wife by another companion, transforming a dismal tragedy into a restorative new beginning.

Through this profound synthesis, Ilamnilavan transforms a brief, two-line couplet into a reverberating cosmic drama. He proves that length alone is not the defining criterion of an epic simile; rather, it is the density of meaning, dramatic resonance, and cosmic scope that elevate a poet’s imagery to epic heights.