Organizational principles in thai phannánaa passages

Abstract

Thailand has had a rich literary tradition in which, until recently, serious literature has always been equated with poetry. Classical Thai poetry written during the past 700 years has covered a vast range of topics: religion, history, romance, legendary figures, imaginary worlds and their inhabitants, to name a few areas. For each major composition, Thai literary anthologies provide representative excerpts, plot summaries, descriptions of verse forms used, biographical data for the author when known, and historical background information. Discussions of the organizational principles that lie behind the literary compositions, on the other hand, rarely occur. Rather, a tacit assumption seems to exist that the structural organization of a work is the same as the plot. An examination of literary selections, however, implies otherwise.