A Study on Maruthoor Koththan’s Poetry

Abstract

Maruthur Koththanar who is considered as a unique short story writer in Sri Lanka, has immensely contributed to the development of several genres under the discipline of Tamil literature such as poetry, drama, reviews for literary works, novels and short stories. During the 1960s when he initiated writing short stories, he was already known for writing poetries in the 1950s and his poetry is of great significance. ‘Neelavaana veethiyile’ was his first poetry which caught the attention of many critics for its depiction of the themes of nature, love, linguistics, labour issues and individual identities. In addition, his poetry captured the beauty of pure Tamil by integrating colloquial diction and linguistic rules. Accordingly, this study aims at revealing his recognition as a poet by highlighting his contribution to poetry. In terms of data, his poetry was used as primary data while essays, reviews and research articles written on his poetry works were taken as secondary data. Moreover, this study used descriptive, comparative, and social approaches in order to emphasize his contribution to Tamil poetry. Since there is very scarce research done on his poetry, this study will fill this gap by showing his significance as a poet through the analysis of his poetry.