The perceived canon of Philippine literature

• Main Author: Gruenberg, Estrellita Valeros
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 1985
• Subjects: Philippine literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/1304
• Institution: De La Salle University

This dissertation aims to discover the perceived canon of Philippine literature. Until the present, there is no reliable listing of the major writers/works of Philippine literature. While it is true that there are anthologies, there is not a single anthology that lists down the truly representative Filipino writers and selections from the pre-Spanish times to the present. In American literature, at least three anthologies studied show a listing of major American writers and works. Unfortunately, none of these works showed how the listing was arrived at. The same problem exists in Philippine literature. There is no way of determining who are truly major writers or works merely on the basis of existing anthologies. While there are listings by several authors, still their choices were done either on a purely personal basis or on the opinion of a few writers. What is needed is a broader base of selection and a quantitative method of selection. The bases of selection in this dissertation are: teachers' opinion, anthologies, awards and critical essays. Teachers who actually teach Philippine literature are a good source of determining our major writers/works. Anthologies which cite an author or work also constitute a good basis of selection. Awards are good indices of determining merit or potential greatness in a writer. Finally, works of literary criticism single out important authors and their works.The data gathered from these four sources were tabulated and ranked from one to ten. This method is called citation indexing, a new method of determining the importance of writers based on frequency of citation. From these data, a perceived canon of Philippine literature was arrived at as of the present time. Case studies of three representative top writers in fiction, poetry and essay was conducted to determine how reputation fluctuates and how it would affect canon-formation.In the conclusion, recommendations as to what type of research can be done after this pioneering work.