Myanmar Literature

Digging back in history, finding the fact that the Myanmar language itself is now more than 1000 years old, while English is only about 400 years gold, Myanmar literature can be expected to be far richer than most of the western languages.

However, Myanmars are weak in fiction. It is believed that Buddhist conservatism has much influenced over writers that fictions are taught to be unreal and made-up stories, and therefore they are lies. In orthodox Buddhist teaching, making lies is a serious sin and is strictly prohibited. This has delayed the birth of the first fiction novel in Myanmar language till the early 1900s.

Before then, most artistic work and literature always somehow related to religion. They were about last 10 lives of Buddha, the last 550 lives of Buddha and so on.

See Language, for further information.

Myanmar Poetry

In the olden days of Myanmar, highly educated men spend most of their time for poetry. Poetry was the body and soul of their lives. Methods of composing Myanmar poetry is far too complicated than English poems, regarding how many syllables there should be in a verse, and which syllable should rhyme with which syllable.

It was one draw-back for the country, that they invented numerous types of poems, rather than creating new inventions, tools, machines, weapons, or methods.

Types of Myanmar Poetry

1.  than-pouk
2.  pyot
3.  lay-cho
4.  dway-cho
5.  tri-cho
6.  pat-pyo
7.  ra-tu
8.  ra-kan

Myanmar Poetry vs. English Poetry

Methods of composing Myanmar poetry is far too complicated than English poems.

But this made Myanmar poetry highly ranked throughout the world.