Edappally Raghavan Pillai (30 May 1909 – 4 July 1936) was a romantic Malayalam

Malayalam poetry

There are two types of meters used in Malayalam poetry, the classical Sanskrit based and Tamil based ones.- Sanskrit Meters :Sanskrit meters are primarily based on trisyllabic feet. The short sound is called a laghu, a long sound is called a guru. A guru is twice as long as a laghu...

 poet who committed suicide at a young age. He along with his close friend Changampuzha Krishna Pillai

Changampuzha Krishna Pillai

Changampuzha Krishna Pillai was a celebrated Malayalam poet from Kerala, India, known almost exclusively for his romantic elegy Ramanan which was written in 1936 and sold over 100,000 copies...

 brought in a new breath of life into the Malayalam poetry of the 1930s. They are considered as Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

 and Keats

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...

 of Malayalm poetry.

Raghavan Pillai has been compared by Kesari Balakrishna Pillai

Kesari Balakrishna Pillai

Kesari Balakrishna Pillai , was a prominent Malayalam writer, art and literary critic, journalist, thinker and visionary.Kesari Balakrishna Pillai, who was known by the name of the newspaper he ran, "Kesari". He was also a literary critic, essayist and translated literary works form French and...

 to Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist...

 of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

Raghavan Pillai's best poem is perhaps Maninadam (The sound of the bells) which he wrote a short while before his death. The farewell song opens by:
It is believed that the famous pastoral

Pastoral

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...

 play Ramanan

Ramanan (play in verse)

Ramanan is the most celebrated work of Malayalam poet Changampuzha Krishna Pillai. It is a play written in the form of verse. It is a pastoral elegy written after the death of his friend, Edappally Raghavan Pillai...

by Changampuzha

Changampuzha Krishna Pillai

Changampuzha Krishna Pillai was a celebrated Malayalam poet from Kerala, India, known almost exclusively for his romantic elegy Ramanan which was written in 1936 and sold over 100,000 copies...

 is an elegy

Elegy

In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...

 based on the life and death of his friend Raghavan Pillai. It is a play writtern in the form of verse which captures the loveliness of the landscape of Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

 with its evergreen trees and its numerous rivers.

Selected works

• Thushara Haaram (1935)
• Nava Saurabham (1936)
• Hridhaya Smitham (1936)
• Maninaadham (1944)
• Edappally Raghavan Pillayude Krithikal

Further reading

• S. Guptannāyar
  S. Guptan Nair
  S. Guptan Nair was a well known Malayalam writer, literary critic, scholar, orator, essayist, lexicographer, translator and educationist. A multi-faceted personality, his interests included music, acting and sports .He was a critic-visionary who probed the human values and aesthetics of...
  
  , Changampuzha, Sahitya Akademi (2001). ISBN 8126012927, 9788126012923