Writing Literary History: Mode of Economic Production and Twentieth Century Waray Poetry by Jose Duke S. Bagulaya

This book is primarily a history of literary forms and modes of economic production. It races the interrelationship between the formation of poetic forms and the shifts in the Philippine political economy. It argues that a specific poetic form develops under a definite mode of economy. In proving thesis, the author uses a four-code theoretical concept -- mode of production, class relations, aesthetics, and dialectics of forms -- to elucidate the complicated relationship between literature and economy. Using the poetry of Leyte and Samar as a specific sample, the author shows the poetry, or culture in general, does not hold an absolute autonomy from the economy, but is a product of class aestheticizing and political struggle under definite economic conditions. This book also contains an anthology of hard-to-find poetry of Leyte and Samar, the eighth and third largest islands of the country's more than 7,000 islands. It includes the original and translation of the unique satirical poetry of the Warays, the radio siday, the contemporary modernist poetry of the intellectuals, and the poetry of the famous revolutionary guerillas of the twin islands. half of the anthologized poetry appears in book form for the first time. As a whole, the book is a compact critical account and anthology of one of the major literatures of the Philippines.

Paperback
Publisher: UP Press (2006)
ISBN-10: 971542436-8
ISBN-13: 978-97-1-542436-3