Abstract
“Agailakiyam” in Sangam Literature presents love, human emotions, and cultural values through a distinctive aesthetic framework rooted in personal life. This research article examines how emotional aesthetics and cultural values are constructed through the representation of love and lived experience in the love poems of Sangam Literature. Selected poems from Kuruntokai, Narrinai, and Ainkurunuru constitute the primary textual corpus. Through close reading and textual analysis, the study examines the functions of the primary setting mutalporuḷ (time and landscape), karupporuḷ (native flora, fauna, and elements), and uripporuḷ (core emotional themes) in shaping the poetic world of these texts. It demonstrates that nature functions not merely as a backdrop but as a symbolic system through which the inner emotions of the hero and heroine are articulated. The study further explores premarital love (களவு), marital love (கற்பு), the role of the female confidante (தோழி), the anguish of separation, waiting, hospitality, the emotional responses of the foster-mother (செவிலித்தாய்), and beliefs associated with the cawing of the crow (காக்கை கரைதல்), highlighting their interrelationship with the aesthetics of love and cultural practices. The findings demonstrate that ‘Agapadalgal ’ in Sangam Literature integrate human emotion, nature, social relationships, and cultural practices into a distinctive literary framework. These poems can be read not merely as expressions of love but also as cultural and experiential records that illuminate the dynamic relationship between emotion, nature, and society.