Who Created the Myth Called Crissot: A Criticism of Criticisms about Juan Crisostomo Soto and his Alang Dios! from 1932 to 2013

DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L315.89

Authors: Mildred M. Crisostomo

Abstract: 

This study focuses on the criticisms about Juan Crisostomo Soto and his masterpiece, Alang Dios’—reviews, critical essays, theses, and dissertations from 1932 to 2013. These materials are seemingly one in blindly praising and placing him in a pedestal worthy a literary god. The present study is an attempt at tracing how a myth came about. What was the context? What was the necessity? Informed by John Guillory’s theory on canon-formation, Michel Foucault’s author-function, and Virgilio Almario’s “makapangyarihang pagbasa,” this present work critically analyzes the criticisms about Juan Crisostomo Soto and his masterpiece Alang Dios! It intends to disclose and interrogate the power relations/struggle at work in the creation of a Crissot that was over and beyond the historical man that he was—a construct, a revered author, a literary icon, a “myth” of Kapampangan Literature.

Keywords: criticisms, literary god, canon-formation, author-function, makapangyarihang pagbasa (hegemonic reading), construct