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Literature—Thailand

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Literature in Thailand Summary

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Literature—Thailand

The earliest examples of Thai (Siamese) writing are stone inscriptions dating from the thirteenth century. The most famous of these is a four-faced pillar inscribed by King Ramkhamhaeng (flourished c. 1279–c. 1317) of Sukhothai in 1292. Although the content deals with the history and social organization of the kingdom of Sukhothai, it is generally regarded as a part of Thai literary history. Another important work believed to date from this period is the Trai Phum Phra Ruang (The Three Worlds of Phra Ruang), a Buddhist cosmology that describes, in prose, the worlds of desire, form, and formlessness.

Classical Literature

Classical literature is written in verse and can be traced back to the Ayutthaya period (1350–1767). One early example, believed to date from the late fifteenth century, is the historical poem Lilit Yuan Phai (The Defeat of the Yuans), which recounts the victory of the Ayutthaya kingdom over the northern kingdom of Lanna. More difficult to date is the epic Lilit Phra Lor (The Story of Prince Lor), one of the most admired works of classical literature. It tells the story of Phra Lor's love for the two daughters of a hostile neighboring ruler; their illicit meeting is discovered, and all three lovers are subsequently killed in battle. The reign of King Narai (d. 1688) was a golden period, when poetry flourished at the court, and new verse forms, involving complex rhyme schemes, emerged. His reign saw the composition of two famous works drawn from Buddhist tales, Samutthakhot Kham Chan (The Story of Prince Samutthakhot) and Su'a Kho Kham Chan (The Tiger and the Cow). Some of the masterpieces of the nirat genre (travel poetry), such as Nirat Hariphunchai and the poet Siprat's Khlong Kamsuan, describing his journey into exile in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, also date from this period.

After the death of King Narai, the Ayutthaya kingdom became embroiled in war with the Burmese. In 1767, the capital was overrun and razed, resulting in the loss of most of its recorded literary material. King Taksin (1734–1782) established a new Thai kingdom based at Thonburi and began the task of literary restoration, but it was only after he was overthrown and a new dynasty established at Bangkok, under King Rama I (1737–1809), that real progress was made. The only complete version of the Ramakien was composed during his reign, by, as was customary at the time, groups of anonymous poets working on different sections. Literary revival continued during the reign of his son, Rama II (1768–1824), with the appearance of the epic poem Khun Chang, Khun Phaen and various works composed for dramatic performance, such as Sang Thong, Kraithong, and Inao, all of which take their title from the names of the main protagonists. The literary career of Sunthorn Phu (1786–1856), Thailand's most famous poet and author of several famous nirat poems and the lengthy poem Phra Aphaimani, is also associated with the reign of Rama II.

Modern Literature

King Rama III (d. 1851) showed little interest in literature, but under his successor, Rama IV (King Mongkut, 1804–1868), printing technology was introduced into the nation by Western missionaries. This, together with the emergence of a potential reading public due to the growth of the education system, had, by the latter part of the nineteenth century, created the conditions for the emergence of prose fiction. The first novels and short stories appeared in journals such as Lak Witthaya, which were edited by Western-educated Thai princes or aristocrats; the contents were often serialized translations of popular Western writers of the day, such as Marie Corelli, Charles Garvice, Sax Rohmer, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. Rider Haggard. The first Thai novel, Khwammaiphayabat (Non-Vendetta), by Luang Wilatpariwat, which appeared in 1915, was a deliberate response to the translation of Marie Corelli's novel, Vendetta, which had appeared in Lak Wittaya in 1901. By the mid-1920s, there was a growing demand for original Thai stories; most popular were adventure stories, often with masked villains, and romantic stories, typically involving a poor boy–rich girl theme, in which the plot was brought to a happy conclusion by a series of improbable coincidences. Novels, both then and now, were typically serialized in a magazine first and then reprinted later as a complete volume. By the 1930s, a number of writers were beginning to look beyond providing readers with escapist entertainment and attempting to address serious social issues; two classics of the period are Siburapha's Songkhram Chiwit (The War of Life), written in 1932, which dealt with poverty, inequality, and the lack of freedom of speech, and K. Surangkhanang's Ying Khon Chua (The Prostitute), published in 1937, which, sensationally for the time, presented the prostitute-heroine as a sympathetic and virtuous character.

In the late 1940s, a number of writers, including Siburapha, were influenced by socialist realism; for a brief period, works highlighting social injustice and criticizing an exploiting ruling class appeared. But freedom to write such works was short-lived, and many writers were either imprisoned or stopped writing during the literary "dark age" of the 1950s and 1960s. One serious writer who did manage to escape interference from the authorities was Khamsing Srinawk (Lao Khamhom); yet some of the elegantly crafted stories in his collection Fa Bor Kan, published in English as The Politician and Other Stories, are rather more subversive than they appeared at first reading.

By the late 1960s, a new generation of writers was rediscovering the political fiction of twenty years earlier; the works of Siburapha and some of his contemporaries became a model for many aspiring writers, whose work became known as "literature for life," that is, literature that was intended to create, or lead toward, a better life for the masses. Such literature flourished in student and academic circles after the overthrow of the military government in 1973, but, with its often simplistic treatment of issues, it had little broad appeal and soon disappeared. With rapid economic and social change sweeping through Thai society in the 1980s, new and more complex themes presented themselves; in the award-winning Kham Phiphaksa (The Judgment, 1982), for example, Chart Korbjitti chronicles the gossip and social hypocrisy that turn a lowly villager into an outcast within his own community. As one of the nation's most successful and accomplished writers, Chart is one of the few who can make a living entirely from writing; nevertheless, with a number of literary prizes to be won each year and considerable media attention, the literary scene remains vibrant.