Tagalog literature; a historico-critical study.

AMERICAN ERA: POETRY - 181
still, those that express the individual sentiments and emotions of the writer. To this class of poetry belong the great majority of our written verses since the coming of the Americans;
in fact, they are greater than all the other forms combined. TJlhe
remark of Eencuchillo, Coria and other Peninsulars that the
Filipinos are given more to lyrical more than to epic, or any other
form of poety, still holds true with our contemporary poets.
Romanticism which stresses individualism asserts itself here,
as in other forms of literature. Started by Patricio Mariano during the first decade of the twentieth century with his Hindi Sayang (Not Wasted), lyrical poetry has become popular and favorite hobby of the poets. Lyrical enthusiasm and emotionsa
fervor have taken hold of their pen. Pedro Gatmaitan, considered the best of the lyricist, has volumes of poems bearing his
name. A collection of these poems has been printed in book
form and named Tungkos na Alaala, (Wreath of Remembrance),
printed in 1912, anid therefore the product of the autchor's
youthful career. Altho the different poems in it are not so
very excellent, yet they show a potential source of power, that
behind them and lying in their very foundation is that literary
mogul which has just started in its career for world renown.
It is this author who first made use of the sixteen syllabled
verse, which is very commonly used today. Just to show how
it is composed let us note down some nuggets from his own pen:
Dilag lamang ng salapi't halimuyak ng pagsuyo
any malarnang ng bahagya sa matamis na paigako.
Here the hemstich is between the eight syllable pi't and the
nine syllable ha in the first line, and between the eight syllable
ya and the nine syllable sa in the next. Or again, as in the following example the hemstich may fall after every fourth syllable:
Isang taong/ sa paganigako'y/ di ma'runong/ pasaklolo
ay naddaling/ mawawalan/ fig maraming/ kapwa tao..
As what has been said somewhere in this book, this kind of
meter is a modification of the eight and the twelve syllabled
verses. This kind of meter has been used by the other Apets --
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