Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons^™

Vernacular Virtual: Toward A Philippine New Materialist Poetics Authors, Christian Jil R. Benitez

Filipino Faculty Publications

This essay turns to and through the Philippine vernacular in order to open up the possibility of a new materialist regard of literature, one that specifically stems from the Philippine tropics. It proposes that the opportunity for such a tropical materialism rests on the onomatopoeism observed in the vernacular. Onomatopoeia, as a material linguistic principle, is recognized here to be most instructive in reunderstanding Philippine folk poetry — texts which date back to the precolonial period — in terms beyond mere representation. As a counterpoint to these traditional literary texts, the essay also ruminates on the poetry of Jose Garcia …