Authors: Thomas Hudak
ISBN-13: 9780896801592, ISBN-10: 0896801594
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Date Published: May 1990
Edition: New Edition
During the Ayutthaya period in Thailand (1350-1767), a group of meters based upon specific types and arrangements of syllables became a significant part of the Thai literary corpus. Known as chan in Thai literature, these meters, and the stanzas created from them, were adapted and transformed so that they corresponded in structure to other Thai verse forms. Although still used in compositions today, these meters reached their greatest popularity during the mid and late Ayutthaya period and the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.
This study of the Thai chan meters contends that Thai linguistic constraints and poetic principles determined the transformation of the Pali meters and stanzas into their Thai counterparts. Disproving the frequent claims that the old chan compositions ignored the sequencing of the particular syllable types required by the meters, the author determines why the meters became popular only during certain eras and just what the aesthetic conditions were that nurtured the use of the meters.
Preface | ix | |
Chatper 1. | Poetry in Thailand | 1 |
Verse Types | 4 | |
Literary History | 15 | |
Chapter 2. | The Aesthetics of Sound | 25 |
Linguistic Techniques of phayr[characters not reproducible]? | 28 | |
Poetic Constraints | 34 | |
Chapter 3. | The Transformation of the Pali Meters and Stanzas | 45 |
The Influence of Pali | 45 | |
The Vuttodaya (Exposition of Meter) | 48 | |
The Syllable | 50 | |
Rhyme and the Stanza in Thai | 51 | |
The Transformation of the Pali Stanzas | 58 | |
The Stanzas Not Inscribed at Wat Chetuphon | 91 | |
Chapter 4. | Poetic Conventions in the chan Meters | 97 |
Phonological and Morphological Changes in the chan Meters | 98 | |
The Conventions in Context | 115 | |
Chapter 5. | The New Thai chan Meters | 147 |
The Meters of the Old Classics | 150 | |
The Meters of the Modern Classics | 156 | |
Chapter 6. | Reaction to phayr[characters not reproducible]? and the Rejection of the chan Meters | 173 |
Appendices | ||
A. | Phonemic Transcription | 179 |
B. | Examples in Thai | 181 |
C. | Examples in Pali | 205 |
D. | The Pali and Thai chan Meters | 209 |
E. | Thai chan Compositions Consulted | 223 |
Bibliography | 227 | |
Index | 235 |