Tue Ruccep TERRAIN OF VerNacutaR LITERATURE THE SERIOUS study of vernacular literature did not gain much head- way until the first half of the 1970s when the accelerating process of decolonization encouraged nationalist inquiry into the dynamics of cultural relations between the Philippines and its past colonial masters. The resulting rediscovery of the hitherto neglected native tradition has led to a fresh and enlightened appreciation of the attempts of our vernacular writers to assert through their works a vision of their society and its future. In 1965, anyone studying vernacular literature was likely to reach research deadends and to receive only minimal help from so-called authorities. This area of research was “a territory where the light is fitful and the maps fragmentary.” Today, there is a little more light and the maps are a little more reliable. But the terrain is still as rugged as ever: the problems are formi- dable. To make the problems seem less staggering, I have grouped them into three categories: (1) those pertaining to materials, (2) those per- taining to men, and (3) those pertaining to methodology. THE PROBLEM OF MATERIALS By materials, what is being referred to are primary texts and secondary materials, the works to be studied and the early studies, where such are available, on the works on related subjects. The problem here is very simple and very basic: it is that of availability. A paramount irony of our cultural experience under U-S. colonia- lism is represented by that institution in Philippine libraries known as Filipiniana. The Filipiniana section is supposed to be a repository of works about the Philippines written either by Filipinos or by First published in The Review (August 1977) under the title “Vernacular Literature.”Cc REVALUATION foreigners. Here books are vigilantly guarded by librarians who make them available only to a select group of readers who have to establish their qualifications to make use of materials deposited in it. 5 It is truly lamentable that Filipinos who have been through a university education have been conditioned to think that interest in One's culture and history is a highly specialized preoccupation reserved for only a few masteral and even fewer doctoral students. When a Filipino enters a Philippine library, he should come into contact with books by Filipinos and about the Philippines. However, thanks to the institution known as Filipiniana, it is possible to be a book- worm in any of our better libraries and still be completely ignorant of the literary and scholarly works by Filipinos. Of course, it is true that available works by Filipino scholars and men of letters are hardly enough to fill a fair-sized room in a system which effectively stifles creativity and productiveness among intel- lectuals lured by the promise of a “universal audience” through English into frittering away their talent and energy on learned topics in Western literature, areas of inquiry which Western critics and scholars are better equipped to discuss. The same educational system discourages many from gathering together works by Filipinos for purposes of serious study by insisting on the study only of literature that has “withstood the test of time,” meaning the masterpieces of the great master writers of the Western world. By impressing on Filipino students that what really mattered was Western expertise if they wished to be scholars or critics, our colonial education succeeded in devaluating native culture and its link with a past that was seen as “backward” and “narrow” and, in lieu of this, promoted a culture that was projected as “modern” and “universal” and therefore “valid for all times and clirnes.” ‘And so it was that the collecting of specimens of vernacular lite- rature has been late by seven decades. Which only means that many works are no longer available, and if they are, these are kept in widely- scattered libraries. The specimens themselves are few, for only a handful of hardy nationalists persevered in gathering works that were in academic disrepute under the neo-colonial conditons that obtained in institutions of higher learning. Some such collectors were Julian Cruz Balmaceda, Marcelo P. Garcia, Carlos Ronquillo, Teodoro Agoncillo and Ildefonso Santos, to name only those who collected Tagalog literature. Collections are also woefully inadequate. The Philippine weather had done much to destroy valuable documents that have not bene- fited from airconditioned archives, fire-proof vaults or even termite-ON LITERATURE AND THEATER 89 free storerooms. And so much of vernacular literature appeared in newsprint easily susceptible to crumbling after years of constant handling. The Pacific War wrought havoc on much printed material, not only because of the fires and bombs that destroyed many libraries storing vernacular literature, but also because paper became a high- priced commodity. Selling old newspapers and magazines was one way of augmenting badly-depleted family incomes during the war. In the process, a lot of valuable works have been lost forever. The limited accessibility of vernacular materials where they have been collected presents another problem. The fact that they are often found in Filipiniana collections has already limited the number of Filipinos familiar with their content. The problem is compounded by a widespread attitude that manu- scripts, books, and sundry others left behind by dead writers are family heirlooms that ought to be kept within the family. It is necessary to appeal to such “collectors” either to donate or sell their holdings so that these could be made available to a large public. In this endeavor, educational institutions should take the initiative lest the collections pass into the hands of profit-hungry Filipiniana book dealers who then export them to libraries in foreign lands. THE PROBLEM OF MEN The problem of attracting quality brainpower to the study of ver- nacular literature is no longer as acute as it was ten years ago when any young Filipino who had an interest in literary studies automatically turned to the study of English and American literature. The nationalistic movement of the late 1960s did much to focus the attention of young people on the culture of the Filipinos. The more pressing problem now is the academic preparation for those who are eager to work on verna- cular literature. The responsibility of meeting the problem rests with colleges and universities strategically located in the regions and equipped with an enthusiastic faculty and a reasonably adequate library of vernacular materials. In addition to collecting literary and culture artifacts, they ought to offer courses that would direct attention and energy to their collec- tions. But it is not enough to offer token courses on vernacular literature. More useful would be a series of courses that would provide the students with a perspective to help evaluate Filipino literary works against thesetting of our society’s history and culture. Such a perspective must be insisted upon because the study of vernacular literature can only become meaningful when it is related to the struggle of the Filipinos to assert their identity as a people and redefine that identity as they interact with the culture of their colonizers. In this connection, it is necessary to undo the general miscon- ception that the history of Philippine Literature revolves around the achievements of our writers in English. Because they have been the more articulate and knowledgeable critics and literary historians, intellectuals writing about Philippine writing in English have been able to give this branch of Philippine Literature a nationwide and even international projection. This lead to a distortion of our literary history which should have as its central concern the narration of men, events and work pertaining to literatures whose history goes back to the days before the onslaught of Western colonialism. Once the currently distorted perspective has been corrected, it will become apparent that any serious student of Philippine Litera- ture must develop proficiency in a vernacular tongue other than Pilipino. Previously, it had been assumed that proficiency in English or Spanish was essential, but the relative importance of Cebuano, Iloko or Ilonggo literature makes it imperative that the expert be equipped to read in any one of the major vernacular languages other than Pilipino. Perhaps only after one has acquired reading skills in other Philippine languages will he begin to discover the oneness of all literatures written in the native languages. THE PROBLEM OF METHODOLOGY This is, to my mind, the most crucial need of the moment in the study of vernacular literature. Having been trained for literary study according to the critical assumptions in Western literature, those who are now turning to the study of Philippine Literature come equipped with a critical apparatus that is more attuned to the concerns :and inten- tions of foreign writing. It is essential that a way be found of harmo- nizing the prospective student's training in research and criticism with the demands if his new subject matter. In these pioneers years, the demand is quite elementary. Vernacular literature awaits to be collected, classified and then analyzed. A tentative methodology to realize these intentions can follow a four-step process. First: humanize the literary work. This consists of identifying the provenance of the literary work and establishing its links with theON LITERATURE AND THEATER a1 writer's life and other works. Background information of the literary work and on the writer is vital to determine the context within which the piece should be studied. There was a dearth of such information in previous academic studies of vernacular writing, and it accounts for much of the uncomprehending comment by mindless comparison and contrast with foreign writing. Where biography and social milieu, however, have been brought into a discussion of vernacular writing, discussion has often been made to rest after enumeration of data that barely hint at the dynamic inter- course between the writer and his work and the social setting. The need is, therefore, for a deeper appreciation of various psychological and social pressures that underlie creative writing. This would allow the reader to gain an insight not only into a poem or play but also into the mind of the artist and the structures of a given society. The second step is to situate the literary work in history. This means not merely the chronology and hierarchy of literary works within a given period of time, but more broadly, the sum total of social, political and economic events that influence the development of cultural forms. It is essential that, in addition to seeing the literary work against the author's biographical background, the background of events that left an imprint on the writer's mind and his productions should also be considered. Many characteristics of vernacular works that set them apart from English or American literary touchstones have been dismissed as flaws when they actually represented attempts by the writers to come to terms with the exigencies of writing at a given historical period. For instance, during the early years of American colonialism, a type of political poetry developed which overtly dealt with current events involving American officials. But they playfully evaded the responsibility for any political overtones by a twist ending which claimed that everything that was narrated and said took place in a dream. Read out of context, the said poems may be summarily dismissed as “childish” or “simpleminded.” However, when seen in the light of the Sedition Law of 1901, the poems become significant pieces attesting to the persistence of political protest against the imposition of American colonial rule on the Philippines. Ideally, the literary work that is being situated in history ought to be viewed within three overlapping frameworks. First, the local framework has to be established. Within the town or barrio were the work appeared, what were the conditions that might have shaped its development? What, for instance, were the occasions for literary com- position? Are there other local writers, previous and contempora- neous, alongside whom the author or piece must be evaluated?92 REVALUATION ___ The second framework is regional in scope. The same line of ques- tioning may be followed, but this time the piece is to be looked at as part of the total output of the region. No matter how fragmentary or piecemeal the information, it is useful to set it down. It is out of such attempts to place a work against the literary history of a given region that a more discriminating national literary history could be pieced together. Finally, the work may then be situated within the framework of literary development in the country as a whole. Such a framework can be more easily reconstructed than a regional framework. After all, Tagalog, English and Spanish writing have been fairly well-mapped out. At present, there are still many blank spaces in our national literary history and many works that have received attention probably will not loom as large as they do now as research in the history of regional literatures attains thoroughness and accuracy. The third step in my proposed methodology is to define the critical perspective that would help us understand the literary work and deter- mine its worth either as sociological document or as literature. The pro- visional literary history in which we have located the work should Jead us to some observations regarding literary traditions. In defining this perspective, we are actually looking for the sources of themes, techniques and intentions of a particular literary work. In short, we want to trace the significant efforts by writers in the past. Tradition does not imply a set way of saying what one means, or a meaning that is immutable. The student must always guard against the notion that literary development will follow the same rules regard- less of time or place. This misconception accounts for the failure of many Filipino students to appreciate the works of their countrymen. Steeped in Western literary ideas and forms, they come to their native literature expecting to find the same things, a situation that inevitably leads to frustration if not culture shock, disorientation and consequent disdain for works that prove different from what they had been accus- tomed to in Western literature. To counteract this erroneous tendency, the student must develop an awareness of tradition, ai the same time that he trains his eyes to recognize the affinities of the work to other literary pieces produced within the same culture. It will save him from the error of seeking in Philippine Literature what it does not presume to offer, considering the factors that shaped its history. Thus, the student can identify the unique’national characteristics of universal literary genres, like lyric poetry, drama or fiction. Given this awareness of tradition, the student should be ready for the final step of making a descriptive analysis of the literary work.ON LITERATURE AND THEATER 93 The key word here is “descriptive,” not “critical.” The emphasis is neces- sary. Having come to Philippine Literature with a critical perspective derived from the West, the incautious student is prone to read a sar- suwela by Pius Kabahar the way he would read Shakespeare, a lyric poem by Leona Florentino the way he would read Emily Dickinson, or a novel by Roman Reyes the way he would read Stendhal. In the study of Western literature as it is conducted in our colleges and universities, the students are taught to be “critical.” The approach is productive because the authors offered in literature courses have already been consecrated as leading figures in their respective countries. But such an approach is bound to flounder when applied to a literature whose lineaments are still in the process of being defined, having been neglected for about seven decades by our own scholars and critics. Pending a more comprehensive picture of Filipino literature in the Philippine languages, the student will have to confine himself to a description of existing literary works. No doubt, value judgments will have to be made in order to separate the gold from utter dross. However, it is not the primary concern of literary study in its present stage to engage in a finely evaluative process, The task of the students of vernacular literature now is to report on the content, concerns, forms and devices in these works as social, political and economic pressures have shaped them. The study of vernacular literature is, then, both tough and easy. It is tough in that it asks the student to unlearn the assumptions and skill he had acquired in working with Western literature and to adopt an orientation that would render him once again a neophyte in lite- rary study. But it is easy in that he is spared, at least for the time being, from the delicate task of passing judgment. It is also more rewarding than the study of foreign literature. The student of vernacular litera- ture is free to ignore secondary sources, a freedom no longer enjoyed by anyone who studies the well-covered works and topics of Western literature. Such freedom would give him all the opportunity to make an original contribution to the fund of human knowledge that benefits his countrymen.