This article identifies large-scale chiastic and bracketing structures in contemporary, colonial and Classic Maya verbal art and literature. These structures are composed of the repetition of lines, verses and stanzas that frame sections of texts and sometimes images. Initially, the argument focuses on an ethnopoetic analysis that directs attention to such forms in modern and colonial narrative and presents an extended contemporary Yucatecan story to illustrate key forms. Second, it turns to similar structures in Classic Mayan narrative written in Maya hieroglyphs to examine the way rhetorical and linguistic tropes intertwined with corresponding features in visual compositions to craft highly sophisticated artistic programmes. By tracking how specific structures are deployed and in what contexts, this article defines an aesthetic that not only sheds light on verbal narratives, but also elucidates visual programmes and their interrelationship with text to reveal a fundamental principle in Maya world conceptualization. This literary and visual analysis develops a cross-medial Maya aesthetics comparable to other global poetic traditions.

本文识别了当代、殖民时期和古典玛雅言语艺术和文学中的大规模奇斯卡和括号结构。这些结构由重复的线条、诗句和诗节组成，构成了文本的各个部分，有时还构成了图像。最初，争论的重点是民族诗学分析，该分析将注意力引向现代和殖民叙事中的此类形式，并提出了一个扩展的当代尤卡坦故事来说明关键形式。其次，它转向以玛雅象形文字书写的经典玛雅叙事中的类似结构，以研究修辞和语言比喻与视觉作品中相应特征交织在一起的方式，以制作高度复杂的艺术节目。通过跟踪特定结构的部署方式以及在什么环境中部署，本文定义了一种美学，不仅阐明了口头叙述，而且阐明了视觉程序及其与文本的相互关系，以揭示玛雅世界概念化的基本原则。这种文学和视觉分析发展了一种与其他全球诗歌传统相媲美的跨媒体玛雅美学。