A Hegemonic Study on Youth Problems Appeared in Modern Sinhala Poetry (From The 1970s to Present)
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to study the nature of youth through the concept of hegemony and investigate how it is portrayed in modern Sinhala poetry. Poetry is one of highly sensitive art medium than other literary media, hence, this study is mainly focused on qualitatively analyzing “the youth” social, economic, and political context that appeared in Sinhala poetry which was published from the 1970s to the present with the hegemonic point of view. As the primary data, selected printed Sinhala poems (from 1970-to present) were used while collected data were analyzed qualitatively according to Hegemony concept. To study the youth issues depicted in poetry, ‘Hegemony’ was used as the theoretical framework that was introduced by Antonio Gramsci. Hegemony is a concept developed by Marxism which can be explained as “ruling by will”. Social, economic, and political factors have affected the youth in an ideological way. The reason the poem portrays the effect of this ideological state apparatus is as a release of emotional pressure or unrest in the youth which depicts the feelings of the youth. In this study, youth problems are identified through hegemony, repression and youth unrest, cultural hegemony and education, counter-hegemony and sexuality, popular culture and youth. This research reveals that youth issues are more ideological than superficial. Thus, it can be concluded that the influence of the ideological state apparatus has affected the youth of Sri Lanka. The social, economic and political factors that influenced youth are depicted in the poems had more emotional sense.
