Burmese Literature

Burmese literature includes the national literature of Burma (Myanmar) and literature originally produced in the Burmese language. Scholars typically trace the origins of Burmese literature to the eleventh century when Burma first organized into a unified kingdom. From these origins, Burmese literature followed a developmental course spanning three broad phases: classical, transitional, and modern.

From 1962 until the mid-2010s, Burma functioned as a military dictatorship, and the country's authoritarian government exerted strict control over literary and cultural expression. Under this system, Burmese authorities permitted little published material to deviate from the approved ideological perspectives of the country's ruling class. However, a series of political reforms introduced in the early 2010s resulted in a relaxation of Burma's censorship codes, facilitating the diversification of topics and themes explored in contemporary Burmese works. A democratically elected civilian government took power in 2015, further empowering the emerging generation of Burmese authors.

Background

The Burmese language is part of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Tibeto-Chinese language family. Its alphabet consists of eleven vowels and thirty-two consonants, but its consonant sounds can only be blended in a relatively limited number of arrangements. As such, the language uses tones to differentiate similar-sounding words. This linguistic quality has had a significant impact on Burmese literature, especially poetry. Spoken Burmese has a melodic cadence, which both classical and modern writers have leveraged to an expressive effect.

Burmese civilization originated at least 3,500 years ago, and the Burmese people converted to Theravada Buddhism in mass numbers around the turn of the fourth century CE. The Buddhist conversion was a defining moment in Burmese history, aligning Burma with the Buddhist influences that have profoundly impacted multiple Southeast Asian literary and cultural traditions. Originally consisting of a loosely connected network of independent city-states, Burma first emerged as a unified nation in the mid-eleventh century under the rule of King Anawrahta (1014–1077). Under Anawrahta, the Pagan (or Bagan) Burmese kingdom established in the ninth century grew into a regional empire. Anawrahta's reign is associated with the origins of a uniquely Burmese literary tradition, upon which Anawrahta's successor kings built by constructing a national network of cultural and educational institutions.

The Burmese empire founded by Anawrahta suffered a decline as the combined result of resource mismanagement and a series of military campaigns conducted by Tartar and Mongol invaders. Burma's unity fractured during this time but was re-established during the legendary reign of King Bayinnaung (1516–1581). Bayinnaung, an ambitious and assertive ruler, not only restored Burmese rule over the territories of its initial period of unity, but also expanded Burmese authority into neighboring areas of what are now Laos and Thailand. Though the security of Bayinnaung's empire began to wane after his death, Burma continued to generally follow an expansionist blueprint, which eventually brought it into conflict with Great Britain, the global colonial superpower of the time.

Following a series of three Anglo-Burmese wars spanning 1824–1885, Britain annexed Burma and brought it under colonial control. In 1886, Great Britain reconfigured Burma into an external province of India, which not only resulted in elevated levels of cross-cultural contact but also proved highly contentious with the Burmese people as members of India's privileged and wealthy classes began taking control of Burmese resources and industries. Despite committing its own acts of colonial aggression to the disadvantage of Burma's general population, the period of British rule also established a secular education network in Burma, which was modeled on the British system and dramatically improved literacy and educational achievement rates.

Nevertheless, popular resentment of British authority continued to build in Burma, leading to an increasingly strong independence movement in the twentieth century. Widespread protests against British rule broke out in the 1920s, gaining continued momentum through the era of World War II (1939–1945). Burma became separated from India during World War II and achieved independence from a weary Great Britain in 1947. A brief period of democracy and prosperity followed, which ended when factional conflicts destabilized the Burmese government, prompting a military takeover in 1958. By 1962, Burma had become a full military dictatorship, instituting strict censorship and severely curtailing literary expression.

The military regime's brutality was exposed in a shocking 1988 incident in which troops responded to a mass pro-democracy demonstration by indiscriminately shooting into crowds of protesters, killing an estimated three thousand people. Insurgent groups continued to attack the Burmese military government during the 1990s, and the combined impact of their activities and international pressure resulted in a series of liberalizing reforms in the early 2010s. A relaxation of the military government's censorship policies ranked among the most impactful changes, facilitating the emergence of a rejuvenated Burmese literary community. In 2015, open elections brought a civilian government to power, marking a major victory for the cause of free expression under Burmese democracy.

Overview

The classical period of Burmese literature began with the eleventh-century unification of Burma and continued into the nineteenth century, when Burma came under British colonial control. During Burma's colonial era, Burmese literature entered a transitional phase that was heavily influenced by the introduction of mass printing technologies. Modern Burmese literature emerged during the twentieth century, beginning with the country's independence movement.

Classical and Early Modern Burmese Literature

Classical Burmese religious literature was mainly composed and committed to written form by Buddhist monks, who circulated in the monastic repositories of knowledge that functioned as the only literary institutions in pre-colonial Burma. Many such works were composed in long-form verse formats known in Burmese as Pyo, which commentators have described as bearing structural similarities to the Homeric epics of the Western canon.

Another important classical literary genre was the Jatakatale, which was a group of didactic stories recounting the imagined past lives of Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563 BCE–ca. 483 BCE), the founding figure of Buddhism. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, classical Burmese literature had arranged itself into four primary genres: Pyoepics, Jatakatales, poetry derived from Jatakastories, and songs dedicated to the Burmese royals.

Secular literature also evolved, with a notable genre known as court literature becoming prominent during the heyday of the Konbaung dynasty (1752–1885). Court literature consisted of both prosaic and dramatic narratives, which were written in rhyming forms and generally depicted the struggles of heroic royal protagonists battling against otherworldly demonic forces. Literary developments in neighboring countries including Laos and Thailand also influenced the classical Burmese secular canon, with Burma's classical literary tradition reaching its end when British colonial authorities relocated the Burmese royal family to India during the period of the Anglo–Burmese wars.

The Transitional Period of Burmese Literature

British colonial authorities established a secular education system in Burma, which improved literacy rates while also introducing Western literature to Burmese students. The British and the Christian missionaries accompanying them, brought printing press technology to Burma. The introduction of the printing press brought a vastly diversified selection of reading materials to the Burmese public and also led to the founding of the country's first news periodicals.

Popular literary genres emerged during this transitional period, initially in dramatic forms but later growing to include novels. Many such works were derivative of Western literary styles. While many were of dubious literary merit, they were well-liked by the public and prompted many members of the common classes to begin engaging in leisure reading.

The history of the Burmese novel dates to 1904, and like the other popular domestic literature of the period, early Burmese novels were imitative of their Western counterparts. Well-established traditions of classical literature largely ceased to impact Burmese literary production during the late stages of the transitional period but revived as Burma's independence movement began to impact its national literature during the 1920s.

Modern and Contemporary Burmese Literature

Burmese nationalism and the country's independence movement proved to be an important catalyst in the emergence of modern Burmese literature. During the 1920s, the national university network introduced classical Burmese literature to their curricula, stoking renewed interest in Burma's ancient literary traditions and foretelling the impending break between Burmese literature and its colonial influences.

As Burmese literature became increasingly politicized, authors began what became a long-term tradition of writing in pseudonyms to avoid attracting the negative attention of authorities. The Khitsan movement of the 1930s introduced a trend of bold literary experimentation, and by the time British colonial rule of Burma ended in the late 1940s, Burmese authors had established a unique body of literature centered on credible and authentic explorations of key social and cultural issues. The early trends of uninspired, half-hearted imitations of Western forms and genres had virtually disappeared from Burmese writing.

During the repressive decades of military dictatorship, Burmese authors issued new works in record numbers, but the content of their work was subject to heavy censorship and was controlled to match the ideological sensibilities of the country's rulers. In 2012, Burma's military government agreed to a relaxation of its censorship regime, after which Burmese writing blossomed in a new period of creative and thematic liberation. Political divisions within Burmese society have persisted since the 2010s, creating similar schisms within its literary community. Writers perceived to be aligned with either the pro-regime or pro-democracy factions faced censure from those on opposing sides of the national cultural debate. Despite setbacks, authors like poet Thitsar Ni continue to write Burmese literature, spreading awareness and knowledge of the culture. His poem "Hlaingthaya" was written in response to the Hlaingthaya massacre in Myanmar. Other have also used their writing to document the changing landscape of the country, though not all authors feel safe to write freely. Observers have noted that while authorial self-censorship continued even after the nominal liberalization of government censorship policy, the fact that multiple ideological viewpoints have come to define contemporary Burmese literature has stoked optimism among commentators for its future prospects.

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