The Critical Villa: Essays in Literary Criticism

by José García Villa, Jonathan Chua (Editor)

This is the first anthology of Villa’s essays written from the 1920s to the 1950s, which created a canon of Philippine fiction and poetry—essays counting as among the most significant in Philippine literary criticism in English.

Genres: Literary Criticism

364 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Jose Garcia Villa was a Filipino poet, literary critic, short story writer, and painter. He was awarded the National Artist of the Philippines title for literature in 1973, as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing by Conrad Aiken. He is known to have introduced the "reversed consonance rime scheme" in writing poetry, as well as the extensive use of punctuation marks—especially commas, which made him known as the Comma Poet. He used the penname Doveglion (derived from "Dove, Eagle, Lion"), based on the characters he derived from himself. These animals were also explored by another poet e.e. cummings in Doveglion, Adventures in Value, a poem dedicated to Villa.

(From wikipedia.org, retrieved 14 March 2011. More info here.)

Reviews

[jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I mostly find myself aligning with Villa’s literary ventures— take for an example his belief that “Literature is the notation of the human spirit, and mere documentation of facts of details, without illumination is not literature.” I also find him, at times, insufferable. Mostly not because of what he said, but because of what he did not say or what the run of his career had implied.

He talks of spirituality in its established stature and the filipino’s inability to procure it. His writings date back to the American occupation, the time where filipinos (I suppose) would much rather immerse themselves in political and civil affairs before trudging their ways into the obelisk of what Villa calls high art. He talks of literature in a manner it dismisses an entire body of knowledge, all compartmentalized within a compressed singularity of life. He crouches above us from his firmament of hubris. But to put a dash of erasure in his slate, Villa was not pretentious in his literary criticisms, he was impeccably impetuous, he was true. What I did not like was his intense pursuance of a higher self that it did a disservice to his country. He had a power he did not wield, he had a diversion he did not do. A few times I was reminded of Marwan Makhoul's poetry:

In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political
I must listen to the birds
& in order to hear the birds
the airplane must be silent.

Will Villa dismissthis even when it had moved many hearts? Like he did with Rizal and Stowe?

Literature, I believe, functions beyond its framework and indexes. That its being political and philosophical does not fracture its essence. Its ability to be radical ought not to dismiss artful undertakings. Literature is not fragile. I take also Eichiiro Oda’s One Piece as a front that may refute Villa, this work of art is metaphysical (sometimes understood as a metaphor for communism, into which I duly agree with) and definitely political. The existence of dragons and "devil fruit" powers may seem ridiculous at first but they have their own purpose. Maybe, Villa had a purpose that is contained within the vicinities of his complex mind, but also, maybe, the higher self is contextual and is obtained concurrently with one's identity and background.

Pero... sa sarili kong lengguwahe, hindi naman kahubaran ang pagtangkilik sa kabanyagaan. Ngunit hindi rin naman masama na sumulat nang may pagnalig, 'di lamang para sa pangkat ng literatura, o sa Diyos, kundi para sa masa. Sir Virgilio Almario, ikaw talaga yata ang paborito ko sa lahat ng mga kritiko.

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Villa the critic is an amateur - Villa the poet. The poet is prancing-merrily-puking; the critic is farcing, manyly flunking.

[Jean Louise | bookloure]

I cannot stand Villa as a critic. Especially since I did not like him very much as a poet, and much less as a short story writer.

[justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

a white-man wannabe writer pouring his frustrations of filipino writers refusing to fester in western formalism. really enjoyed these despite