Buddhist Confessional Poetry and the Modern literary theory

Prof. Wimal Dissanayake's latest book, Buddhist Confessional Poetry: Narratives of Self-Conversion has been published by Sarasavi Publishers. It is a close reading of Buddhist confessional poems gathered in the famous work Therigatha. The author has sought to situate these poems in newer horizons of understanding. In doing so he has brought into play the latest vectors of cultural theory.

It is a path-breaking work, in that, it is the first time that the poems in the Therigatha have been analysed in terms of contemporary literary and cultural theory. The results are remarkably stimulating. The book shows what new energies can be released when classical texts meet modern concepts.

There is an unfortunate tendency among many to think the newer literary creeds such as Deconstruction and Post-structuralism cannot be usefully applied to classical texts.

Anyone familiar with the critical writings of Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault or Roland Barthes would recognise how deeply familiar they were with Western classical texts and how imaginatively they applied their newly-fashioned theories to ancient texts.

Wimal Dissanayake, as a literary scholar, does the same for classical Buddhist texts in his latest work, Buddhist Confessional Poetry: Narratives of Self-Conversion. In the book, he has pointed out how theory can clear an important space for the understanding of textuality.