| Summary/Abstract |
A consensus is growing among scholars of modern Indian literature that the thematic development of Hindi, Urdu and Bangla poetry was consistent to a considerable extent. I use the term ‘consistent’ to refer to the transitions between 1900 and 1960 from didacticism to romanticism to modernist realism. The purpose of this article is to build upon this consensus by revealing that as far south as Sri Lanka, Sinhala-language poetry developed along the same trajectory. To bear out this argument, I explore the works of four Sri Lankan poets, analysing the didacticism of Ananda Rajakaruna, the romanticism of P.B. Alwis Perera, and the modernist realism of Siri Gunasinghe and Gunadasa Amarasekera.
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