Analysis of Resil Mojares' The History in the Text
Jayson M. Gayo
PI 100
At the beginning of Resil Mojares’s essay, “The History in the Text”, it was clearly stated that “Any literary text is a point of entry into the historical world.” This statement in the essay rejected the idea of “historical literature” wherein in order to become a historical literature, a literature must be written by “historically-minded” writers like Jose Rizal, Amado Hernandez and many more. Mojares opposed the idea of ”historical literature” by stating that all text are historical since they are “unavoidably permeated, determined, or compromised by history”.
There are four points stated in the essay that are eligible to prove that any literary text can be an entry into the historical world. First is that a historical work need not deal with past events. It is true that we are reading historical texts with events that happened in the past but these texts are clearly written when our past is still their present. History is a record of event wherein events are recorded at present. When we are reading historical texts, we can imagine the things happened before, but many of us can not relate with those events. One example is that, Filipinos before are very conservative in a way that writing texts about people who are not conservative infuriates them but now many of us can write or even draw/illustrate people who are not conservative without feeling any emotions or with only less emotions. In this first point, a writer writes the ways people lives and how society are shaped during that particular dimensions of time and space and that is already called history.
The second point is that history is presented in an artistic way of writing. Based on the essay, “History is not just a subject matter, a matter of plot or theme.” To produce history, the readers in a specific time and space must relate in it. Rizal’s artistic ways of writing draws the attention of the readers wherein it is like the readers are participants or characters in
PI 100
At the beginning of Resil Mojares’s essay, “The History in the Text”, it was clearly stated that “Any literary text is a point of entry into the historical world.” This statement in the essay rejected the idea of “historical literature” wherein in order to become a historical literature, a literature must be written by “historically-minded” writers like Jose Rizal, Amado Hernandez and many more. Mojares opposed the idea of ”historical literature” by stating that all text are historical since they are “unavoidably permeated, determined, or compromised by history”.
There are four points stated in the essay that are eligible to prove that any literary text can be an entry into the historical world. First is that a historical work need not deal with past events. It is true that we are reading historical texts with events that happened in the past but these texts are clearly written when our past is still their present. History is a record of event wherein events are recorded at present. When we are reading historical texts, we can imagine the things happened before, but many of us can not relate with those events. One example is that, Filipinos before are very conservative in a way that writing texts about people who are not conservative infuriates them but now many of us can write or even draw/illustrate people who are not conservative without feeling any emotions or with only less emotions. In this first point, a writer writes the ways people lives and how society are shaped during that particular dimensions of time and space and that is already called history.
The second point is that history is presented in an artistic way of writing. Based on the essay, “History is not just a subject matter, a matter of plot or theme.” To produce history, the readers in a specific time and space must relate in it. Rizal’s artistic ways of writing draws the attention of the readers wherein it is like the readers are participants or characters in