Soneto ni Lolang Bato at iba pa: A creative writing project on Filipino sonnet

• Main Author: Chua, Monina Micole
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Personification in literature; Sonnets, Philippine (English); South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14894
• Institution: De La Salle University

The Philippines is a country blessed to be surrounded by mountains, rainforests, and other natural aesthetics, which effortlessly attracted tourists, and investors as it is undeniably full of resources. Along this attraction and shift of focus comes the detachment of Filipino themselves to their environment. Over time, social problems arose in the country. The author finds it fitting to use nature as a spectator and speaker where men find comfort in. Thus the collection will revolve around the common theme of non-men symphatizing with men. This establishes a relationship between nature and man which has seemingly collapsed through the advancement of technology and economy. With the use of the sonnet form and structure, these objects are humanized in such way that it creates a connection with humanity and therefore the readers.While the sonnet form has been on creative turmoil because many find it limiting in the modern age, alongside the rise of free verse, the writer wishes to prove that the sonnet form is not out of fashion, because its seemingly strict form is malleable. Various personas will be used in the sonnet collection through an anthropomorphic approach, which leads to a variation of tones, imagery, and overall ambience. Accordingly, it will argue that it is not the strict meter, rhyme, or number of lines that make a sonnet. Rather, it is the elements: argument, antithesis, argument-resolution, and conclusion. Incorporated in the sonnet will be devices accent, volta, and caesura which deem to be crucial to the formation of a sonnet may this be modern or traditional. Some examples include: 'Soneto ni Inang Gabi' (Sonnet of the Mother Night), 'Soneto ng Lolang Bato' (Sonnet of the Elder Rock). The writer, hence, aims to create a web of connections between traditional and modernity, through the anthropomorphism of the natural world and its elements incorporated into a Filipino sonnet collection.