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Viewpoint:
Inspiring writes
Hemakumar NANAYAKKARA
The works of Robert Frost, the highly praised American poet, are an
inspiration for many generations of English poets. Frost is a poet of
traditional verse forms and metrics. Through his poems Frost masterly
described the rural life and the landscapes of USA. He wrote many nature
poems while working in a farm in Derry, New Hampshere. Some of his
popular nature poems are 'Mending wall', 'Tree at my window' and
'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'. With his enchanting writing
style Frost was able to capture the attention of not only Americans also
many other English poetry readers from all over the world.
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Mahagamasekara and Robert Frost
Who appeals to the Sri Lankan audience more? |
Even though Frost's creative writes are highly praised, those works
do not directly appeal to the Sri Lankan readers. Typical Sri Lankans
are not actually familiar with those described circumstances in the
west. The countryside and the way of living in that part of the world is
quite different from our rural life. As we know, where the language is
concerned, Frost's writes are astonishingly good but as Sri Lankans, we
live in a different part of the world where the whole atmosphere is
quite different. As it is known, the entire lifestyle in the west is
unalike.
Most of the modern day Sri Lankan writers have learnt English as a
second language at the school level. Only a few have mastered it in
higher educational institutions. As the first language most Sri Lankans
learn the mother language.Therefore, most Sri Lankans usually think in
the mother language. As it is known, English is a foreign language for
the majority of Sri Lankans. Usually the writers devour the inspiration
from the back ground that they are being surrounded. Naturally, their
inspiration flows through the sinus organs by seeing, hearing or
feeling. For an instance, being a part of Singhala educated generation,
most of todays Sri Lankan poets are inspired by diverse writes of Dr
Mahagama Sekara. Mahagama Sekara is one of the greatest Sri Lankan poets
who wrote his works in Sinhala. He is better known to us as one of the
most resourceful writers of Singhala literature. Also regarded as one of
the a greatest poem and song writers in modern times. Some of his famous
poetry works are Nomiyemi, Prabudda and Sakwa Lihini. His works are
mainly orientated on typical Sri Lankan rural life and Buddhist
Philosophy. These writes are better known among most Singhala educated
Sri Lankans as outstanding works. Most of the Sinhala music listeners of
many generations are quite familiar with the masterpieces which were
penned by Mahagama Sekara. Being Sri Lankans these writes much appeal to
local readers because people are much familiar with the basics and the
concepts of these writes.
With the help of their knowledge on the environment and society, they
are in a better position to understand what those works genuinely mean.
The inspiration doesn't appear simultaneously only with the written
language or the recognition of a particular writer, it is all about how
good the readers understand the work and the impression that will be
delivered by that particular piece of write.
As a poetry lover during my younger days I was pretty much inspired
by the works of Mahagama Sekara and some of the other great Singhala
writers. Truly the inspiration that transmitted by the creative works of
those local writers were much effective than what conducted by the works
which were written by universally known, legendary English writers.
The reason behind that was, these Singhala writers simply expressed
things which were based on themes relatively common to ordinary Sri
Lankan people. In general these Singhala creative writes became much
intuitive to generations of Sri Lankan readers and made a strong impact
on them. |
