National Artist Virgilio S. Almario, also known as Rio Alma, will give a major lecture on a seldom-visited period in Philippine literary history and launch two books on criticism and one on erotic poetry on March 7 at Teresita Quirino Theater, University of Santo Tomas (UST).
The event, under the auspices of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (CCWLS), also marks Almario’s 70th birthday. Almario says his lecture on “Ang Panitikan Para sa Kalayaan: 1838-1903” (The Literature of Liberation: 1838-1903) is
a sweeping survey of 19th-century popular literature in Tagalog.
It traces the roles of the awit at korido and the komedya, the local offshoots and adaptations of European metrical romances in shaping the spirit of liberation before the propaganda movement, the formation of the Katipunan and eventually the Revolution of 1896.
The lecture, he says, attempts to chart the emergence of nationalist consciousness from Francisco “Balagtas” Baltazar to Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio and Apolinario Mabini, and covers unvisited territory between “Florante at Laura,” “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo.”
“Florante at Laura,” Baltazar’s allegorical epic on the Spanish conquest and colonization, is described as the foremost poem leading to the birth of Filipino nationalism. Rizal’s “Fili” and “Noli” sparked the Philippine revolution.
Almario says his lecture proposes a solution to the puzzle of how Bonifacio distilled the works of propagandists and introduced and inspired the masses to revolt.
To be launched after the lecture are “Si Balagtas at ang Panitikan para sa Kalayaan,” published by Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino; “Ang Tungkulin ng Kritisismo sa Filipinas” by Ateneo de Manila University Press (ADMUP), which are both on literary criticism, and “Lungting Lungsod ng Lunggati” by Filipinas Institute of Translation.
The UST CCWLS is headed by professor emeritus Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo while ADMUP is managed by professor Rica Bolipata-Santos.