Philippine E-Journals

The Casaysayan Nang Pasiong Mahal and the Bicol Pasyon

Rene B. Javellana

Discipline: Religion, Philippine History

 

Abstract:

Few vernacular texts can claim to have a clearly defined textual and literary history. By text I refer not to those that have been transmitted orally but to those that have been put down in writing and have been transmitted through manuscript or print. The pasyon – a verse narrative and didactic poem about the life of Christ, is one such text whose tale of transmission invites textual and literary analysis. Textual analysis consists in the task of finding out how a text was transmitted over time and what corruptions and emendations entered the original text as the result of this transmission. Literary analysis consists in finding the sources of the text at hand.