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| Tuesday, 11 November 2003 |
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by Colombo East group correspondent Author, poet and critic, Oscar Gunawardena delivered a lecture on Prof. Meegaskumbura's analysis of Munidasa Cumaratunga's 'Piya Samara' sponsored by the Colombo South Research Circle at Suvisuddharama Hall, Wellawatte last Sunday. He said that Prof. Meegaskumbura's analysis of 'Piya Samara' is a landmark of critical writing after several decades since Cumaratunga's own analysis of Raipiel Tennakoon's 'Vavuluva' in the forties of the previous century. The nature of the poem is unique and cannot be classified, because it has the qualities of the lyrical, evocative, elegeic, narrative, declamatory and is a non linear vortex of emotive informational energy flowing from the central theme of the son to the father and vice versa in centripetal and centrifugal manner. The Meegaskumbura analysis being open ended, the list of references is a wide canvas, ranging from Japanese author's for eastern Buddhist culture, South Asian from Sri Lanka and India, to European from Britain, France, Germany to the American continent. He cites the crucial turning points in the poem as the death of the father, when the germinal son blossoms out. The very title of the poem 'Piya Samara' with its multi semantic overtones is discussed at length. The direct denotative meaning, Disi, is Remembering Father and indirect annotative meaning, Nisi, and the hidden symbolic meaning, Vaesi, calls for penetrative thinking which reveals steps to memory and recollections closed, ringing reverberations of semantic multiplicity. Critic Meegaskumbura faults both admirers and critics for not making an in-depth analysis of the poem, contradictory statements by the same critic at different times, difficult language understanding as an excuse for dismissing the poem. He says that instead of stout heatedly taking the challenge to understand it, mere dismissal and running away on grounds of difficult language, what would be the plight of the world's best literature if scholars developed such attitudes. He has said that some have not seen the wood for the trees. They lack the ability to see the poem as a whole. The first stanza is characteristic of the whole poem in both content and form. Aesa vaesuu nu sudussa sudussa paee Basa nobe pirunen aruten raesen Vesa ginuu mituran saturan lesek Pubuduvaa da ahoo yali maa kodaa The eye to the unfitting closed, the fitting posed Few words of meanings brimful cup in taste divine To accept both friend and foe as one Pray wake me once again who would and when Here three values are focused. (1) appropriate value in all spheres. (2) succinct expression, the economy of words. (3) equanimous or balanced view. These characteristics were enshrined in both Cumaratunga's life as well as his work Piya Samara. Through the relationship with his father as pivot, the father's life characteristics and his behaviour and actions reverberated in the son's in three channels. |
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