Abstract:
The present study focused on the youth problems addressed in modern Sinhala poetry in
terms of hegemony from the year 2000 to 2020. However, modern poetry is a newly
emerged segment which is different from the poetry of Colombo era generations. The
birth of this new generation was started in 2000 which could be named as century poets.
After the year 2000, the tendency of poetry was different than that of writing in the 1970s.
Among them, the trend was mainly focused on the problems of the youth of Sri Lanka
who lived in that period. Many authors have discussed these problems in terms of poems.
These poems should be investigated or criticized using newly developed theory known as
Hegemony which is the evolution of traditional Marxism. Hegemony is the theory that
was developed by Antonio Gramsci through his manuscripts written in Prison Notebooks.
Dominance or hegemony is the most important fact in Gramsci’s concept. According to
Gramsci, there are two authorities as dominance and suppressor. Dominance; ruled by
self-assent while suppressor is ruled by the authority after the huge suppression. After the
year 2000, the poetry depicts both marginalized youth and hegemony. Amongst them, (i)
The working of Hegemony to marginalize youth, which includes; youth unrest, the
transformation of young love, un-employability, life struggle of labor class (ii) Cultural
hegemony in Sri Lanka, which includes sex, economy, education (iii) Globalization and
Hegemony, which includes; popular culture, post-war era are the important facts that are
appeared and discussed in poetry which were written during 2000-2020 years. During
these two decades, most prominent poets who have written poems with related to
hegemony are Kumara Hettiarachchi, Manjula Wediwardane, Lakshantha Athukorala,
Mahinda Prasad Masimula, Malathi Kalpana Ambrose, Timran Keerthi, Ruwan
Bandujeewa, Saumya Sandaruwan Liyanage, and Lahiru Kithalagma. Overall, most of the
poetry revealed that the base for that poetry is the ideological state apparatuses which
were discussed in hegemony.
Keywords: Poetry, Youth problems, Hegemony, Ideology
