Philippine E-Journals

Memorabilia at Sipat sa Sining ni Alejandro G. Abadilla, Manlilikhang Mapanghimagsik = Memorabilia and Re-assessment of the Art of Alejandro G. Abadilla, Insurrectionary Artificer

E. San Juan Jr.

Discipline: Literature

 

Abstract:

Pinarangalan na "ama ng modernismong tula" sa Filipino, ang praktika ni Abadilla ay hindi pa nabibigyan ng konteksto batay sa milyu at karanasang personal. Hindi matarok ng pormalistang pamantayang kanluranin (salig sa hegemonya ng imperyalismong E.U.) ang ugat ng etikang indibidwalismo at estesismong pananaw na nagbubuhat sa alyenasyon ng petiburgesyang uri sa kolonisadong lipunan. Ang pagsusuring ito'y nagtatangkang isingit ang proyekto ni Abadilla (sa pagpupugay sa kasarinlan ng sarili) sa multi-determinasyong kuwadro ng kasaysayan at politika upang makilatis ang kanyang halaga at katuturan. Sa perspektiba ng krisis ng kapitalismong global, maipaliliwanag natin ang itinakdang ideolohiyang limitasyon ng sining ni Abadilla, katambal ang utopikong sangkap na maaaring magamit sa mapagpalayang kilusan ng bansa.

Acclaimed as "the father of modernism" of Tagalog poetry, Abadilla's literary practice has never yet been contextualized in its specific milieu and in the poet's lived experience. Western formalist standards governed by U.S. imperialist hegemony fail to discern the roots of Abadilla's peculiar individualist ethics and aestheticist outlook in the alienation of the middle stratum of the Filipino intelligentsia in the colonial/neocolonial Philippine social formation. This essay attempts to historicize Abadilla's project of affirming the authentic "self" by locating its multiple determinations, both artistic and sociopolitical, in order to arrive at a just appraisal of his cultural significance from a historical-materialist perspective. Thus concretely situated, Abadilla's art reveals both its ideological limitations and utopian impulses framed by the crisis of global capitalism in the middle of the twentieth century.