Abstract:
This dissertation aims to study aesthetics of Khlong in Thai poetry in relation to the nature of the Thai language. The selected texts include all types of Khlong written from the Ayudhaya period to the modern poetry of the present day, Rattanakosin era. Khlong are found to be different from other types of Thai poetry in their unique prosodic patterns: Khlong require the presence of tone marks and the nature of the Thai language contributes to the poets' creation of melodious and witty Khlong in the following respects: euphony, diction, and fine shades of meaning. Euphony consists of tones consonant and vowel sounds. Poets place emphasis on tones at the end of each hemistich or each full line by using rising tone and mid tone as seen in Yuan Phai Kholng Dun and Supreme Patriarch H.R.H. Prince Paramanujitajinorasa's poetic works, and on the different tone levels. As for consonant and vowel sounds, alliteration, epenthetic /r/, and assonance are employed to create rhymes and the harmonious qualities of Khlong. Additionally, in order to create the beautiful rhythmic patterns of Khlong, the stressed and unstressed syllables of Thai pronunciation are employed. As for diction, puns, either homophones or homonyms and repeated words are used to play on the multiple meanings of words. They give rise to various types of repetition, a popular literary technique in composing Khlong. In terms of semantics, reduplication, tetrasyllabic doublets, word order, and ellipsis are employed to enhance the effectiveness of the words. The employment of all these characteristics of the Thai language in each Khlong enriches its euphonic and semantic aesthetic value as produced by the beauty of sounds and words, the classification of concepts, the emphasis on feelings, the multiplicity of meaning, the organization of concepts, and summaries. Furthermore, this dissertation argues that the main aesthetic concept of Khlong the creation of euphonic and verbal words aesthetic of Khlong which is based on the use of euphonious sounds, puns, and repeated words as well as the beauty of the poetic content generated by the addition of meaning and the recasting of thoughts found in Khlong into different types of verse - initially developed in Ayudhaya Khlong and has since influenced Rattanakosin Khlong, including modern Khlong. In addition, there has been a preservation and creation of aesthetics in relation to the prosodic pattern of previous Khlong, resulting in different novel styles of writing that reflect the individuality of each poet. Even though their writing styles are different, they still have to adhere to the conventional rules for the rhythmic nature of Khlong, which makes up the unique aesthetics of Khlong as seen in poetic works from the past to the present.