Balagtas: Proyekto Tungo sa Diyalektikong Analisis at Materyalistang Interpretasyon ng Florante at Laura.

While there is a rich library of scholarly studies on the canonical poem of Balagtas, there is still a lack of understanding of the linkage between its artistic structure and its sociohistorical context. Critical inquiry shows that the linkage is ambiguous and problematic. This metacommentary attempts to grasp the ideological mediation between structure and society. Balagtas' art seeks to interpellate the readers to become critical, informed subjects ready to act and resolve the contradictions of their society in solidarity with the oppressed. Balagtas seeks to reveal the truth that the conflict between Moro and Christian, the power of women, and the crisis of the patriarchal order rests on the material contradictions in the social relations of production. Those contradictions are mediated in the experience of war among social groups whose beliefs and ideas function as the immediate motivation for the ethical-moral conduct or pattern of action of subjects in the Spanish colony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]