The Sweetness of Flowers in the Air: Literary Ethnobotany and Classical Burmese Poetry

Title
The Sweetness of Flowers in the Air: Literary Ethnobotany and Classical Burmese Poetry
Publication Date
2018
Author(s)
Ryan, John C
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5102-4561
Email: jryan63@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:jryan63
Editor
Editor(s): R S Regin Silvest and Sahab Uddin
Type of document
Book Chapter
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Authorspress
Place of publication
New Delhi, India
Edition
1
UNE publication id
une:23671
Abstract
This chapter proposes the idea of literary ethnobotany as both a conceptual framework for reading classical Burmese poetry and as a subgenre of the nature poetry tradition of the "Golden Age" of Burmese literature prior to British colonisation. In general, works of literary ethnobotany narrate aspects of human interactions with and uses of plants as food, fiber, medicine, decoration, enjoyment, pleasure and spiritual investment. This chapter briefly traces the origin of literary ethnobotany back to the late fifteenth-century tawla tradition of the forest journey in Burma. Subsequent poets, such as UK yaw, invoked the tawla in the nineteenth century in poems that express the beauty and multisensoriality of the botanical world as well as traditional uses of flora by villagers for subsistence purposes. In Burma and the Southeast Asian region today, literary ethnobotany has the potential to serve as a vital means to preserve rapidly disappearing traditional understandings of plants.
Link
Citation
Regional Literature in the Perspectives of World English Literature, p. 29-40
ISBN
9789387281813
Start page
29
End page
40

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