Abstract:
Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often making use of the voices of a narrator
and characters. At the same time, the entire story is usually written in metered verse. The above
method is not a modern one in Sinhalese literature. We can find out so many examples in the
past, like Muvadevdawatha, Sasadawatha, Kavsilumina and Kavyashekaraya. All of this is
written in forms of religious propositions. Gunadasa Amarasekara's attitude however, is different.
He was traditional, but did not support such a style. His first collection of poetry; Bhavageetha
was published in 1995. Afterwards he wrote a few works of poetry and narrative poetry. The
study is based on his narratives; Guruluwatha (1962), Asakdakava (2003) and Mathakawatha
(2014). In this field he followed the tradition of classical and folk Sinhalese poetry. According to
Vimal Dissanayake; Gunadasa Amarasekara influenced by William Wordsworth. Not only that,
but he had followed the style of realistic figurative well. In this genre sometimes he tried to
rebuild the old narrative poetry with works such as Asakdakava. His modern ones based on
personal objects were criticized by many. However Amarasekara is one of the icons of modern
Sinhala narrative poetry.
