ABSTRACT
The messenger poetry of Sri Lanka is a distinctive tradition within the general phenomenon of messenger poetry across South Asia. Messenger poems have been composed and enjoyed on the island in Sinhala, Pali, Tamil, Sanskrit, and even in English. A canon of six Sinhala messenger poems, all classics of Sinhala literature and dating from fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (the Peacock Messenger, the Swan Messenger, the Hill Myna Messenger, the Goose Messenger, the Parrot Messenger, and the Cuckoo Messenger) are central to this tradition that continues to the present day. This chapter introduces two of the most basic registers of reading these poems, which can help readers to appreciate and enjoy them even in translation.
