The Aesthetics of Khaaw in Lanna Poem

Abstract

The purposes of this article is to study the Aesthetics of ‘Khaaw’ in Lanna poems. The data of ‘Khaaw’ were collected from the significant and diachronic literatures of Lanna. The results of the study found that there are 3 significant conditions created the aesthetics of ‘Khaaw’: firstly is the amount of words in one line, secondly is the rhyme scheme, thirdly is tonal sounds. The amount of words in one line should be 7-8 words if not the aesthetics will be decreased. As well as the rhyme scheme must follow the prosody criteria and should not be the same words in the same position of the rhyme scheme. The tonal sounds of final words in a line is very important for the aesthetics. These tonal sounds should be the mid tone, falling tone (special falling tone or half high and half falling tone or glided falling tone), high tone, and rising tone. Therefore, the poet have to select the final tone of words by following the rules of rhyme scheme, so that ‘Khaaw’ will be melodious. These characteristics are called as the objectivity of aesthetics. Besides the rhyme scheme can create the aesthetics, consonant rhyme, reduplication, and other rhetorics such as; simile, metaphor, retort, patience, phrases, personification, metonymy, hyperbole, references, and allegory, the correspondence of these related components can also create the melody and aesthetics of ‘Khaaw’.