Kalidasa was a great Indian poet and dramatist. He wrote in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. Kalidasa is sometimes called the Shakespeare of India.
Many of Kalidasa’s plays and poems have romantic themes. They are remarkable for their description of nature, the elegant style in which they are written, and the powerful imagination of their author. Kalidasa’s best known works are the play Shakuntala and the lyric poem “The Cloud Messenger.”
Historians have been able to establish few definite facts about Kalidasa’s life. Many think that he was one of the group known as the nine gems. These were men of genius at the court of the Indian king Vikramaditya. This king was probably Chandragupta II, who reigned from about A.D. 375 to about 415.
