Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

“The Heavens declare the Glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters
speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is
not heard.”

-Psalm 19:1-3

Background of the Study

Literature gives one a total perception of what had been in the glorious past. It is a point of entry into
the dustbin of history of any country. Literary writings, reveal the sublime feelings, deepest emotions
and thoughts of the author, of the race and of the time or era it was wrote. Hence, literature is a faithful
reproduction of life. Furthermore, literature, though, faintheartedly hides in the covers of the book, has
given us insights, ideas, and delights throughout the ages. Consequently, the effects of literary writings
in criticizing the social order is tremendous and history, undeniably, bears witness to it.

According to the Filipino Historian Teodoro Agoncillo and Renato Perdon who wrote the book titled,
“The Americanization of Asia,” the Philippine curriculum mostly celebrates foreign writers instead of
embracing the country’s local writings and literature that defines who the Filipinos really are. This
observed and felt scenario encouraged the researchers to conduct a research using Dr. Jose Rizal’s
poems.

Poetry as a division of literature demands overarching understanding of theories and principles

underlying it. It connotes complexities; as observed, it requires teachers to be knowledgeable of its
forms and contents. Hence, poetry is taught for the thoughts, emotions, and idea it contains. It should
be taught as carrier of heritage of the people and manifestation of a creative genius of the race. Thus,
students and teachers must be motivated well when in contact with the literary writings.

According to Felix Ladeño the end product of any learning activity is the attainment of the desired
objectives. This apparently is the bone of contention in the pedagogy of poetry. As one pores over the
magic of poetry and deciphers the messages it conveys, it brings a varied spate of feelings in expressing
the inexpressible.

The school, as an institution, is of help in contributing to the formation of human beings. Literature as a
subject or course that centers on individual in the society and his environment should be given emphasis
in all levels of education to foster responsibility and compassionate care to the ecosystem that is
declining due to the fact that people themselves no longer respect the mother nature.

In the Philippine setting, no man of letters has ever lived more beautifully, thought more nobly, and
suffered more deeply than Jose Rizal wrote Teofilo Tuazon. Jose Rizal is indeed a literary giant.

Most often, people forget the fact that Dr. Jose Rizal is also a naturalist. Much of Rizal’s poetry pieces
show extreme adoration to his environment. Rizal’s poems, though obliquely, contain his brazen love for
nature. Rizal’s poetry displays mystical experiences, union with the external nature, and quite a
reflection expounded in a smooth rolling phrases of blank verses. The fascination communicated by Jose
Rizal to nature and its wonders, as extols by his poetry, is one reason of this study. And since Dr. Jose
Rizal is the country’s national hero and his writings ignited the hearts of the Filipino people in the past to
revolutionize against the anomalous system of the Spaniards, the researchers saw it apt to also utilize
Rizal’s poetry to call for attention in preserving and conserving the people’s common home- the earth.
As people bring his works abreast, this is now the right time to act and ponder the plunder that people
have done to the common home with whom people’s share life.

The world people living seems to have lost its physical wonders. People no longer regard the world
he/she is living; people seems to embrace what often called as throwaway culture in which one is
engrossed in consumerism, irresponsible urban development that caused environmental degradation
and global warming. Inspired by this unwholesome and disordered condition of our ecosystem this
research paper streamlining Rizal’s poetry draw reflections to all these untoward occurrences to
people’s common home- the earth, that in the words of St. Francis of Assisi “our sister with whom we
share our life and a beautiful mother who embraces us,” who is now crying and calling for people’s help.

To encapsulate, this study tried to bring back ardor and appreciation to Filipino poetry, specifically,
Rizal’s poems that pose extreme romance with nature. Believing that romanticism is the strongest
theory among many others in literary criticism, the researchers chose to use this for their poem analysis.
This study also employed mimetic theory of Aristotle which states that literature is a representation of
life and explication de texte that allows a limited reader response.

Objectives of the Study

This study aimed at analyzing Rizal’s romanticism that speaks about his brazen love for nature and the
environment on which he often took inspiration for his poetry.

Specifically, this study aimed to answer the hereunder objectives:

Illustrate tenets of romanticism reflected in the lines of Dr. Jose Rizal’s selected poems.

Analyzing Dr. Jose Rizal’s poems based on Wordsworth’s romanticism, in terms of:

action and situation;

feelings recollected in tranquility;

language used; and

similitude in dissimilitude.

Draw reflections of this study for the preservation and conservation of people’s ecosystem.

Draw implications of this study in language and literature teaching.

Significance of the Study

This rigorous study is a combined comprehensive reading and analysis of Dr. Jose Rizal’s poetry
which serve as an opener for environmental awareness, environmentalism via literature, and Rizal’s
romanticism. Particularly, this study would be beneficial to:

Literature Classes. Poetry, as one of the divisions of literature, is a fascinating lesson that
students should fall in love with. Sometimes because of the diction used, which oftentimes complicates
the text, students are having a hard time unlocking the meaning of the printed text. Technically, this
would aid them in fully analyzing the poems especially those with touch of extreme admiration to
nature. This would also serve as an eye-opener to those students who abhor learning Philippine
literature.

Literary Criticism Students. Any piece of literature can be interpreted using different theories
and approaches. This study would further broaden their understanding in using Wordsworth’s
romanticism in analyzing a certain literary piece. The signposts and tenets presented and studied would
further expound their knowledge on using Romanticist approach in critiquing a certain poem or writing.
Thus, this endeavor would help them in critiquing a literary masterpiece anchored on the theory of
romanticism.

Students taking P.I. 311 Rizal’s Life, Works, and Writings. Dr. Jose Rizal is oftentimes recognized
by his poems “My Retreat”, “To My Fellow Children,” and “To the Filipino Youth”. It is therefore fitting
for this study to present some of the poems left unchecked or not-really-famous poems of Dr. Jose Rizal
and acquaint them with the readers. This would further stir their imagination as they do an in-depth
analysis of the writings of the national hero who is also a literary giant.

Teachers of P.I. 311 Rizal’s Life, Works, and Writings. This study as anchored on Rizal’s poetry pieces
would help them understand better, or would further enhance their various interpretation of Dr. Jose
Rizal’s poetry. This also will help them to innovate approaches and methods to the teaching of P.I. Rizal’s
Life, Works, and Writings, especially poetry pieces.

Literature Teachers. As the Chinese proverb says “A thousand teachers, a thousand methods.”
This study would help them enhance their teaching approach and add to their methods of teaching and
strategies. Poetry can be made pleasurable if teachers know how to interpret and analyze the poetic
lines especially those of Dr. Jose Rizal. This would also be the chance for them to incorporate in their
teachings of Rizal’s poetry the menace which the climate change has brought forth because of people’s
irresponsibility to their surroundings.

Poetry Lovers and Readers. There are many of them, a whole lot more. These individuals who
are delighted in tasting the lines, rhythms, and diction of every written poem; some of them are avid
fanatics of Dr. Jose Rizal’s write-ups. With this study, the researchers are thinking positive that this
would add to their cabin or pile of poems. They will be awed at Rizal’s style of writing and the message it
brings.

Nature Lovers. There are humans who have an extraordinary reverence towards trees,
landscapes, lakes, and the like. These people are parallel to that of Dr. Jose Rizal who immediately finds
meaning and emotions to his ambiance. This study would further encourage them of making something
invaluable for our environment. They would become the new evangelizers on conserving and preserving
our nature, which in the words of St. Francis of Assisi, is everyone’s sister.

Environmentalists. Dr. Jose Rizal is a naturalist and environmentalist, therefore, it is fitting that
this research would benefit them. Further, these are people who tirelessly work for the preservation and
conservation of the environment. This research would be a quasi-advocacy, helping them in calling the
attention of people on matters that calls for environmental awareness on climate change and global
warming. Moreover, the researchers are optimistic that this research would be used for environmental
pedagogy and advocacy.

The researchers further aim to make everyone a catalyst for environmentalism. As Dr. Jose Rizal wield
his pen against colonizers, this research also wields its analysis to call for attention, education, and
awareness for the nature.

Department of Education (DepEd) and Curriculum Crafters. This study is also for the DepEd and
Curriculum Crafters to incorporate in the curriculum the poems of Jose Rizal so teachers may have an
avenue to further explains each one’s duty of caring the environment. This research would foster
environmentalism in the minds of learners. As Pope Francis exhorted in his encyclical, ‘Good education
plants seeds when people are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life.’

University and College of Education Library. The product of this study will add to the vast collection of
researches in the bookshelves of the library. This would be of great use for students conducting the
same study, approach, and theory. This would be useful for upcoming generations.

Neophytes and Future Researchers. This research would first become their related studies. Second, this
is beneficial to those who are conducting the same research using textual analysis on selected poems
and romanticism as its anchored theory. Lastly, this will serve as their guide in conceptualizing research
studies, theoretical framework and aid throughout the course.

Scope and Limitations of the Study

This study focused on Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal’s poetry especially his poems containing his brazen love for
nature. Five poems that possess naturalistic themes were taken as samples of the study by the
researchers with the desire to inculcate reflections on the significance of the common home-the earth
thereby appreciating its essence as part of God’s creation and draw pedagogical conclusions on teaching
Rizal’s poetry in literature.

Dr. Jose Rizal had written many poems from his childhood, in the prison cell, and finally before his firing
squad. However, the poems under study were chosen according to their naturalistic themes and based
on the criteria of Wordsworth’s romanticism, to wit:

Flowers among Flowers

Hymn to Talisay

In Memory of my Town (Un Recuerdo a Mi Pueblo)

My Retreat (Mi Ritero)

To the Flowers of Heidelberg (A Las Flores de Heidelberg)

Most of his poems were written in Spanish. Hence, the researchers used only one (1) reference to avoid
discrepancies, namely; Jose Rizal: Life, Works, and Writings of a Genius, Writer, Scientist, and National
Hero written by Gregorio F. Zaide and Sonia M. Zaide. Yet, one poem aforementioned above did not
come from the reference book cited. Noticeably, the poem footnoted were taken from the impeccable
website of Jose Rizal University.

From these, the researchers were challenged to demystify Dr. Jose Rizal’s poems based on
Wordsworth’s romanticism and drew implications to both ecological conservation and teaching of
Rizal’s poetry in literature. However, limitations were considered in this study.

In any qualitative research, the analysis is the primary problem. Every reader has his/her own
interpretation of the text and can possibly fall to subjectivity. Rizal’s poetry pieces are no exemption to
this. However, the authors’ main analysis is grounded on Wordsworth’s romanticism and based mainly
on the signposts of the theory he offered.

The study, to avoid perplexities, did not cover all the poetry of Dr. Jose Rizal. This is the limitation of this
study. Besides, this study only looked at the place of Dr. Jose Rizal’s romantic poems and the questions
that the literary theory poses and its implications to both caring of ecosystem and teaching of literature.

Theoretical Framework

This study focused on textual analysis of Dr. Jose Rizal’s poetry specifically using Wordsworth’s
Romanticism as a core theory.

Wordsworth’s romanticism views poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings

recollected in tranquility. The feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation;
feelings and emotions recollected in tranquility; the language use; and the metaphor, the similitude in
dissimilitude.

Generally, romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well
as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It further said
that it gets away from what is considered aesthetic standard of writing during those times. Moreover,
romanticism was an echo in an attempt to obstruct urban sprawl, industrialization, and call for people
not to take for granted their agrarian lives. Hence most of the romanticist turn their writings to nature
to encourage people to return to countryside and continue living simply. Its foundation is based upon
the poet’s lifelong conviction that truth and joy lay in the union of the individual with external nature
and that the experience could be made clear to others in an artistic, symbolic form.

To William Wordsworth, poetry is something perceived by one’s mind or self-revealed by the

external stimuli and one begins to have an ‘overflow of powerful emotions or feelings,’ to which the
poet would later ‘recollect in his tranquility.’ Poetry for Wordsworth is a simple, ordinary emotion that
even if one is already detached from the external stimuli or actual environment perceived by the senses
one can still vibrantly remember the feelings and emotions he/she experienced and that he/she would
later ‘recollects it in his tranquility,’ evoking a new but corresponding emotion resulting of creation of
new ideas. Furthermore, Wordsworth sees poetry in terms of its production, in terms of the method of
its composition, intimately linking the poem’s conception with the original experience of the poet.

It looks with the joy of rediscovery on what it sees as unestranged conditions: early childhood,
traditional rural labor, wise passiveness, and the self-absorbed nature. The romantic gaze frequently
belongs to a lone figure stilled in contemplation of imminent nature, or of landscapes suggestive of
infinity- mountains, chasms, oceans, distant plains.

Romanticism reflects a deep admiration to nature. For the romantics, there is nature and there are
human beings to experience nature. Romantic philosophers believe in the Divine being; hence, nature
for them is a reality that evokes feelings to people containing truth.

Moreover, being qualitative, this study is also anchored on the explication de texte, a French
formalist method of literary analysis that allows for a limited reader response, similar to close reading in
the English speaking literary tradition. It is a finely detailed, very specific examination of prose and
poetry in order to find the focus or design of the work. This operates on the premise that literature, as
artifice, will be more fully understood and appreciated to the extent that the nature and interrelations
of its parts are perceived, and that understanding will take the form of insight into the theme of the
work in question. The method involves a detailed yet relatively objective examination of structure, style,
imagery, and other aspects of a work. It was particularly advocated by Gustave Lanson.

The mimetic theory proposed by Aristotle also guides the course of this study which states that
literature is a representation of life. Aristotle primarily, believed that a form manifests itself through the
concrete and the concrete takes meaning with ordered principles. The poet imitates a form of nature
and reshapes it and thus, he is both an imitator and a creator. The mimetic theory holds that a literary
work of art is a re-creation, a representation, or a re-combination of what is found in reality. It further
suggests that literature mirrors life. With this theory, the present study would try to judge Rizal’s poetry
in terms of imitation in his external environment which he observed and felt. Moreover, it will try to
analyze Rizal’s poetry in relation to reality and to address the present ecological crises. Thus, this theory
is applicably used as an effective way to transcend real-life situations and human actions.

With these theories, literature becomes the best avenues in the world of pedagogy to instill
awareness and react to the present dilemma the world is experiencing, especially on the part of
ecosystem that is crying for help against these untoward actions of people.

Conceptual Framework

This study focused on Dr. Jose Rizal’s poems especially those with touch of nature or having
naturalistic themes. From these, the researchers tried to establish the tenets of romanticism and Rizal’s
love for nature which are implicitly and explicitly mirrored in his poetry pieces. Wordsworth’s
romanticism was used in analyzing the action and situation, emotions recollected in tranquility, the
language used, the similitude in dissimilitude.

From there, the researchers attempted to relate implications in teaching language and literature
and the researchers came up with an analysis of Rizal’s poems drawing reflections on preserving and
conserving the ecosystem.
 The paradigm that follows outlines the concept of the study.

Paradigm

Figure 1. A schematic diagram showing the concept of the study.

Definition of Terms

The following terms are herein defined conceptually and operationally to facilitate better
understanding throughout the course of the study. For some terms it was deemed insignificant to
include the way it was used in the study because the conceptual meaning is also operationally used.
 Addressee. The person whom the speaker is directing his/her poems or any piece of text in
literature. In this study, it refers to the persons or people whom Jose Rizal wanted to address his poetry.

Analysis. refers to the process of dividing the whole into the basic parts of the elements.
Operationally, it is the process to which Rizal’s poems underwent in order to determine tenets of
romanticism, give reflections on caring of our ecosystem and draw implication on teaching language and
literature.

Ecology. a branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their
environments. In this study the term is used to find and bring to light reflections on Rizal’s poetry.

Environmentalism. Conceptually and operationally, it contrasts with ‘deep ecology’- the belief
that the natural world can be ‘managed’ for the benefit of humanity while causing as little damage to
biosphere as possible within the existing culture-nature relationship.

Environmentalists. They are concerned about environmental quality especially if the human
environment with respect to the control of pollution. Operationally, they are advocators for
preservation and conservation of our natural resources.

Environmental Conservation and Preservation. Denotatively and operationally is defined as the

sustainable use and management of natural resources including wildlife, water, air, and earth deposits,
both renewable and non-renewable. It attempts to protect those parts of natures untouched by humans
to maintain their present conditions.

Implication. It is an implied conclusion or inference which is indirectly stated or suggested in any

course of study. Operationally, this refers to the would-be effect of using Dr. Jose Rizal’s selected poems
in teaching literature as analyzed according to Wordsworth’s romanticism.

Jose P. Rizal. He is widely considered as one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines, and is
implied by Philippine law to be one of the national heroes. He was the author of the novels Noli Me
Tángere and El filibusterismo, and a number of poems and essays. Operationally, some of his poems
containing naturalistic themes are the subject of the present study. He is treated in this study as a poet
and a naturalist.

Language. It is a system of arbitrary, vocal, symbols, which is tacitly agreed upon by a group of
people for the purpose of communication. Operationally, this refers to the course of study.

Literature. Generally written work and considered to be the superior and lasting artistic merit of
a certain culture. It may be based on reality or imagination. Its words are artfully arranged to stimulate
feelings and impart understanding. Operationally, it is used as an avenue in experiencing life,
enjoyment, knowledge and reflection of Rizal’s poems.

Our Common Home. This phrase was used by Pope Francis I in his Encyclical “Laudato Si” to
refer simply to earth, to nature and to our environment. The word also is used in this study for the same
purpose.

Persona. Conceptually it is a character assumed by an author in a written work. Operationally, it

is the speaker in the poems of Dr. Jose Rizal.
 Poem. It is a metrical composition, especially one that is concerned with the feeling and
imaginative description. It is operationally defined as the ten selected poems of Dr. Jose Rizal.

Poet. It is conceptually defined as one who writes poem and possess high powers of imagination
or expression. It is operationally referring to Dr. Jose Rizal.

Poetic Diction. Denotatively, these are word choices and phrasings in a literary work. Diction
may be described in terms of various qualities, such as the degree to which it is formal or colloquial,
abstract or concrete, literal or figurative or whether it is derived from Latin or Anglo-Saxon.
Operationally, it is used to describe words used by classicist or often called as classical rhetorical figures
with whom the romanticist such as William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley and Samuel Coleridge despised
and instead used words that are ‘used by men.’

Poetry. It is a type of discourse which achieves its effects by rhythm, sound patterns, and
imagery. Most characteristically, the poetic form evokes emotions or sensations. Operationally, this
term is used as the vehicle by which the environmental themes of Rizal is depicted.

Readings. It is a mental activity that involves comprehension. It is an act in which the reader
perceives what is written in the printed text and draw inferences out from it. In this study it is used
connotatively to refer to the way the poems of Jose Rizal are to be analyzed grounded on the theory of
Wordsworth.

Reflections. Denotatively, it is an image seen in a mirror or on a shiny surface. Moreover, it is a

written note that explains or discusses the meaning of a certain text. Operationally, the present study
would try to create a commentary out from the conclusion made by the researchers regarding
environmental degradation, and anything that concerns on preservation and conservation of people’s
ecosystem.

Romanticism. It is a theory in literary criticism that poses extreme love for the environment or
nature. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as
glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It is an unusual
interest on nature: in woods and winds, in forest and flowers. It is a sentimental humanitarianism or
concern for fellow men especially the oppressed and the poor. In this study, romanticism serves as the
springboard from which the researchers will analyze Rizal’s poetry. It is in this way that the researchers
will try to see Rizal’s romance with nature.

Romanticist. Conceptually, he/she is a writer, artist, or musician of the Romantic movement. A

person who subscribes to the artistic movement or ideas of Romanticism. Operationally, this refers to
the manner the poem is to be analyzed in accordance with the criteria set by Wordsworth’s
romanticism.

Romanticist Readings. Rizal’s poems are seen in the romanticist poet views and perspectives.
Hence, the used of Wordsworth’s romanticism to guide the course of the study.

Romantic Period. Conceptually, it was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement
that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the
approximate period from 1800 to 1850. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. It was a
revolt against urban sprawls and industrialization. It was trying to heed the peasants and people to go
back to their agrarian lives. In this sense it was a return to nature. In this study, it is used as a Movement
that brushed away classicism but rather put emphasis on feelings and inspirations drew from nature.

Tenets of Romanticism. Conceptually and Operationally defined as beliefs on romanticism that

shows admiration for objects of nature, turning back to nature, spontaneous overflow of emotions and
the use of simple language.

Admiration to Nature. Conceptually and operationally, Romantics stressed the awe of nature in art and
language and the experience of sublimity through a connection with nature. Romantics rejected the
rationalization of nature by the previous thinkers of the Enlightenment period.

Turning Back to Nature- Conceptually and operationally, Romantics believed in the natural goodness of
humans which is hindered by the urban life of civilization. They believed that the savage is noble,
childhood is good and the emotions inspired by both beliefs causes the heart to soar.

Spontaneous Overflow of Emotions- Conceptually and operationally, Romantics believed that

knowledge is gained through intuition rather than deduction. This is best summed up by Wordsworth
who stated that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

Using Simple Language- Conceptually and operationally, Romantics turned their back on worn poetic
diction and classical rhetorical figures. Wordsworth makes his own language which is ‘set in the
standards of men,’ plain but with force and with ‘gentle shock of mild surprise.’

Text Analysis. It is one of the techniques in literary criticism that surfaces the author’s intention
of writing, or the implied message of the text being written. Operationally, it is a technique used by the
researchers to come up with an objective description of Dr. Jose Rizal’s poetry, by reading between and
beyond the lines.

Wordsworth’s Romanticism. It views poetry as the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings

recollected in tranquility (De la Rosa 2003: 10). The feelings therein developed give importance to the
following:

Action and situation. Conceptually and operationally, these are incidents in common life that is being
related and described by the romanticist poet.

Feelings recollected in tranquility. Conceptually and operationally, these are emotions felt by the poet
caused by external stimuli or actual environment that even if one is already detached from it and ready
to rest he/she can still remember the feelings experienced and able to write them in poetic-lyric verses
or in Wordsworth’s words ‘the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.’

Language Used. Conceptually and operationally, this refers to the language which William Wordsworth
offered, to wit, “language used by men” or by common people. Wordsworth shrugged at the thought of
using the classical “poetic diction” and instead used language which is unadorned and simple.

The following are the “language used” to be encountered in this study:

Conversational. Conceptually it is a talk involving two people. Operationally, this occur in the study when
the poet talks to another person or inanimate object.
Colloquial. Conceptually, it is an informal way of talking. Operationally, this refers when the speaker
talks informally even if there is no human beings or inanimate object.

Everyday. Denotatively, used routinely or typically. Operationally, this refers to the words of the speaker
perceived to be used habitually.

Plain. Denotatively and operationally, words that are easy to be understood.

Figurative. Denotatively, are words or lines which meanings are different from the basic meaning and
that expresses an idea interestingly. Operationally, this is used when the speaker refers to something
else and uses his environment to streamline his ideas and thoughts.

Direct. Denotatively and operationally, this refers to direct calling of someone’s attention, thoughts,
emotions or ideas.

Ordinary. Denotatively and operationally defined as normal or usual.

Similitude in Dissimilitude. Conceptually and operationally, these are the metaphors and figures of
speech that the author utilized in creating a poem ‘to throw a certain coloring of imagination, whereby
ordinary things be presented in the mind in an unusual manner.’

The following are the metaphors:

Simile. Denotatively and operationally is figure of thought in which one kind of thing is compared to a
markedly different objects; the comparison is signaled by the use of like, as , and as of.

Assonance. Denotatively and Operationally it is defined as the repetition of identical or similar vowel
sounds in nearby words or stressed syllables.

Hyperbole. Denotatively and operationally is a trope which is a point is stated in a way that is greatly
exaggerated.

Metaphor. Denotatively and operationally is a figure of thought in which an object, expression or ideas
are directly compare.

Personification. Denotatively and operationally is a figure of thought in which an abstract concept, an

animal, or an inanimate object is treated as though it were alive ot had human attributes.

Polysedenton. Denotatively and Operationally defined as conjucntions for rhetorical effect.

Moreover, the terms defined above served as the core components of Wordsworth’s romanticism
theory by which Rizal’s poetry pieces will be analyzed especially those that speak of nature.
Chapter II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

“In the Romantic Period, poetry was no longer used to make complex arguments in a witty, polished
style. Romantic poets used unadorned language to explore the significance of commonplace subjects,
the beauty of nature and the power of human imagination.”

-Elements of Literature

Related Literature

On Tenets of Romanticism

People most often misconstrue the meaning of romance in literature. Today, the word romantic is often
a branded label used to describe sentimental writing, particularly those best-selling “romances” about
love- a subject that many people mistakenly think the Romantic poets and writers popularized.
Oftentimes, romanticism is associated immediately to love. But at first for enlightenment, the term
romance used in this study has nothing to do with the commonly considered romantic.

Historically, Romance in the earlier years meant a language or dialect derived from the Roman, that is,
Latin language. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Rumanian were romance languages.

During the time when England passed through the Dark Ages which was characterized by
poverty, drought and plague, tales about chivalric romance and heroic prose and poetry flourished. It
was a made up fantastic stories of adventures of heroic knight, which generally have a theme about
courtly love. Thus, the word romance became and commonly associated with love. Yet not only with
love, it was also associated with the fantastic, the original, the melancholy, the unusual, the distant past,
the distant future, the far places, the fanciful, the free, the unreachable, the moon, the stars but most of
all, love.

In the beginning of Nineteenth century, romanticism soared in England. Whereas the term
“romantic” currently refers to love, the romantic era was characterized by primacy of individual’s
thoughts which is rooted from early revolutions in Europe. Furthermore, romantic era emphasized
personal feelings and abhorrence of what is considered classical form of writing. Hence, works of writers
in this period showed a sense of delight, sensibility to nature and the beauty that surrounds them. A
deep empathy with obscure, humble, or underprivileged people, and a vivid imagination that
constructed fantastic dream worlds manifested in the works of writers in the romantic era.

The romantic period stemmed from three different reactions. First, romantics set themselves in
opposition to the order and rationality of classical and neo-classical artistic precepts. Consequently, the
engenderment of romantic philosophy- the desire to be free from convention and tyranny; The new
emphasis is on the rights and dignity of individual. Second, the romantic period has an immediacy which
the classical ones tend to lack. Romanticism was partly a reaction against urban sprawl, industrialization.
It coincides when Great Britain industrialized itself. Factories sprang up in towns and cities across the
country, and the agrarian lives of people that had been known for centuries are taken for granted.
Hence, the romanticism calls for people to return to their simple, agrarian lives. And, it also encouraged
people to appreciate the beauty of nature. Lastly, Romantic era was characterized by an emphasis on
individual’s thoughts, which stemmed from a rebellion to tyrannical authority inspired by the French and
American Revolutions.

The term Romantic relates to being fascinated with youth and innocence, to question authority
and tradition for idealistic purposes, and to develop an awareness of adapting to change. Moreover,
romanticism is generally based upon on a faith in the value of the unseen and the ability of the human
beings to discover and express hidden truth by the use of imagination, emotion, and inspiration. Great
art, by the romantic view, was the expression, in new, appropriate language, of the basic moral and
aesthetic truths that would bring happiness to human beings.

Romantic poets thought of nature as transformative: they were fascinated by the ways nature and the
human mind “mirrored” the others creative properties. The feeling therein developed gives importance
to the action and situation, not action and situation to the feelings. Nature for romanticist poets is a
very essential element to produce a robust and magnificent masterpiece of poetry. The idea of sublime
is of vital importance for the romanticist poet. It has been constantly discussed as the ‘strongest
emotion the mind is capable of feeling.’ The sublime is related to the concepts of vastness, infinity,
astonishment, when for instance we are contemplating nature and its elements of natural and
supernatural (enrage sea, immense mountains, beautiful flowers and the likes).

Samuel Coleridge exhorted his thoughts on this matter in a beautiful way:

“Not the poem we have read, but that to which we return, with the greatest pleasure, possess the
genuine power, and claims the name of essential poetry.”

Nature has its ways in healing people from the hustle-bustle of the world. Nature gives solace
and refreshment to people in times of grief, desolation and stress. Matthew Arnold as cited by Ladeño
(2012) located Wordsworth’s healing effect in power:

“The extraordinary power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered in nature, the joy offered in the
simple primary affections and duties… and renders it so as to make a share of it.”
 Like Tolstoy in his finest, like the great sages of Judaic and some aspects of Christian Tradition,
Wordsworth hallows the commonplace, celebrates the common, human heart, and the nature that
cares for and refreshes that heart.

Romanticist poet contemplated the mesmerizing creation of God and gradually developed a feeling of
sensitivity and oneness with the universe. Hence, they look at the mountain, lakes and trees, and made
them the subject of their interpretation and inspiration. Perceptively, they did so to counterattack the
aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of
nature (it was mostly embodied in visual arts, music, and literature but have a major impact on
historiography, education, and natural sciences).

To contend this prevalent ideology of reducing the majesty of nature and its scenic beauty to
scientific rationalization and principle, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and others proposed a
new way of seeing things in the surroundings. Wordsworth, among others, was intent on transforming
the place of poetry in society; from a specialized, agreeable, but not from a high-ranking pursuit and
taste; it was to be given sherry, as Wordsworth scornfully puts it. More so, they combated the art that
conforms to logic, order, balance, propriety, reason, and mastery of the emotions; these are the salient
characteristics of neo-classicism as a result of French classicism in eighteenth century. Hence, the
romantic poets set out, through their poems, to reveal to men and women a new kind of poetry. It was
the kind of poetry that is exploring the external nature with ever-increasing delicacy. A poetry that unify
the human beings to his/her environment. A poetry that delves with the beauty of nature expressed
through analogies in the poem culled from experiences and emotions mustered by the poet.

By this, Wordsworth extoled in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads the object of poet’s thoughts:

“In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, in spite of
things silently gone out of mind and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and
knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. The
objects of the Poet’s thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his
favorite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move
his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man.”

Noticeably, poems created during the romantic period presents imaginative experiences in a
very powerful, moving, and artistic manner. This is because romantic poets saw the power of
imagination, aside for being a vital faculty of mind, as a kind of desire and motivation that drives the
mind to learn and know things that cannot be learned in a rational manner. Each of the romantic poet
had his own special view of the creative power of imagination and of the ways in which the human mind
is adapted to nature.

As Wordsworth beautifully puts it in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads:

“…considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as a naturally a
mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature.”
 Romantic literature has many themes of romanticism that are contrary to the thoughts,
ideologies and beliefs of the previous movement of rationalism. As the philosophers put it, romantics
were concerned more with the importance of the heart and all things creative rather than the mind.

By about the middle of the nineteenth century Romanticism began to give way to new literary
movements.

Wordsworth’s Romanticism

William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth in Cumberland. His sister, the poet and diarist
Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life was born one year later. After the death of their
mother in 1778, she and William did not meet again for another nine years. In 1783 their father died.
Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine.
That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in 1791. He
returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later
holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. Clearly, in this
passage, Wordsworth showed extraordinary love for nature.

According to his mother, Wordsworth was, as a boy, ‘stiff, moody, and of violent temper’. The calmness
of his ambiance makes his poetry emerged superb, robust and made his political views to steady. After
many years of unsettlement, in 1795 he received a legacy of 900 pounds from Raisley Calvert and
became able to pursue a career as a poet.

William Wordsworth stipulated his theory of romanticism on his prominent Preface to Lyrical Ballads
which was first published in 1798 followed in 1800. The volumes published gave neither Wordsworth’s
nor Coleridge’s name as author; but on 1802 it included a preface where Wordsworth discussed the
elements of a new type of verse, one that is based in “real language of men” and avoids the “poetic
diction”. He further discussed in this book the definition of poetry as “spontaneous overflow of feelings;
recollected in tranquility.” The fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805.

On Action and Situation

Wordsworth’s romanticism sought to move the minds of people to gaze around the charming beauty of
nature and urge them to turn away from industrialization through creative power of imagination
enshrined in his poetry. Moreover, although the mind is naturally a “mirror” of nature, as Wordsworth
thought, the imagination actually moves the mind in mysterious ways to imitate (without being
sacrilegious) the power of its Creator. The purpose of this imagination is to create new realities in the
mind and (as a result) in poetry.

The principal object of Wordsworth’s theory of romanticism is about incidents or situations from
common life, and to relate them throughout in the language used by men. The feelings therein
developed gives importance to the action and situation, not the action and situation to the feelings.
Thus, romanticism believes that poetry represents nature of reality. Believing that any piece of text will
become savory when associated with ideas mixed with excitement drawn from personal experience or
encounter in certain entity or from nature. Wordsworth’s romanticism is chiefly, low, rustic, and plain
living because ‘the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain maturity and
less under restraint.’ Furthermore, Wordsworth’s romanticism form is often a lyric that lends itself to
spontaneity, immediacy, a quick burst of emotion, and self-revelation. It focused more on rural life
instead of city life, because in the countryside “the passions of men are incorporated with beautiful and
permanent forms of nature”.

On Feelings Recollected in Tranquility

Wordsworth found hope in certain inherent and indestructible qualities of the human mind, and
likewise… certain powers in the great and permanent objects that act upon it, which are equally
inherent and indestructible. It is in the romanticism that an object is seen as it is and when
contemplated deeply in silence could create a vast pool of ideas that leads to creation of poems. This is
so because attraction to the object seen is augmented when further reminisce in tranquility and
loneness.

Poetry must speak plainly but forcibly communicated for the reader to understand accurately
the text. Wordsworth’s romanticism depicts: early childhood experiences, manners of rural life and
occupation and self-absorbed love for nature. His romanticism is imitative and affective. Imitative as its
emulate the creative properties of nature and affective as it deals with the rising out of repeated
experience and regular feelings and notions in simple and unembellished expressions.

Wordsworth theory suggests that even if one is already detached from the external stimuli that
gives delight and giddiness to him/her he/she can still vividly reminisce the feelings and be able to
describe the ideas in a ‘simple and unelaborated expression.’ It also suggests that habits of meditation
or in Wordsworth’s jargon “recollection in tranquility’, if the feelings formed drawn from external
environment is still vibrantly palpable, the more the writer can write ‘as such objects strongly excite
those feelings’ and feelings carry along the purpose or intention of the writer or poet.

In expressing delight, Wordsworth further explained his poetry style, that is, feelings recollected
in tranquility in his famous Preface to Lyrical Ballad, as follows:

“I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the
tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful
composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but the emotion, of whatever
kind, and in whatever degree, from various causes, is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing
any passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will, upon the whole, be in a state of
enjoyment. If Nature be thus cautious to preserve in a state of enjoyment a being so employed, the Poet
ought to profit by the lesson held forth to him, and ought specially to take care, that, whatever passions
he communicates to his Reader, those passions, if his Reader’s mind be sound and vigorous, should
always be accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure.”

On Language Used by Men

 Wordsworth in his unconventional and unconformity form of writing from traditional eradicated
the ‘poetic diction’- a language, generally, used by those in ‘rank’ and different from the diction used by
English commoners. Wordsworth’s language used is often plain, conversational and simple. His poetry is
least under influence of social vanity hence the emotions, experiences, feelings, and notions contained
by his poems are expressed in a simple and unelaborated manner making it easy to be understood by
commoners.

Wordsworth believed that an unembellished language arising out from repeated experiences
and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more than philosophical language. He further
asserted that a poetry is in ‘good sense’ when the ideas expressed in language is fitted to their
respective importance. Wordsworth remarked on the use of language in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads as
follows:

“The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from
common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of
language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of
imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and,
further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly
though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which
we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in
that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their
maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that
condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may
be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life
germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are
more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the passions of
men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.”

On Similitude in Dissimilitude

Wordsworth’s poems incorporated painting of imagination whereby the ordinary, simple things
be presented in a very unusual manner and further makes these experiences or incidents interesting.
Furthermore, he said that passages in the poems should enmesh metaphors and figures of speech for
the reader to have a varied spate of feelings. He believed that the human mind is capable of being
excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants, hence, he offered that poet should style
their poems with figures of speech to stir the imagination of the reader and to engross the mind into a
meaningful experience resulting to create a rationalization. Taken from his famous Preface to Lyrical
Ballads, in his own words he further explained the system of similitude in dissimilitude:

“If I had undertaken a SYSTEMATIC defense of the theory here maintained, it would have been my duty
to develop the various causes upon which the pleasure received from metrical language depends.
Among the chief of these causes is to be reckoned a principle which must be well known to those who
have made any of the Arts the object of accurate reflection; namely, the pleasure which the mind
derives from the perception of similitude in dissimilitude. This principle is the great spring of the activity
of our minds, and their chief feeder. From this principle the direction of the sexual appetite, and all the
passions connected with it, take their origin: it is the life of our ordinary conversation; and upon the
accuracy with which similitude in dissimilitude, and dissimilitude in similitude are perceived, depend our
taste and our moral feelings. It would not be a useless employment to apply this principle to the
consideration of meter, and to show that meter is hence enabled to afford much pleasure, and to point
out in what manner that pleasure is produced. But my limits will not permit me to enter upon this
subject, and I must content myself with a general summary.”

On the Preservation and Conservation of our Common Home

One period in history that changed the views and perspectives of poetry in the world is the
Romantic Era. Romantic period or romanticism, on which most of the poet and writers were intent in
eradicating a society that conformed to classicism catered novel ways in seeing things around us. It
advocated new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and beauty of nature. In addition, it was a literary
and intellectual style flourished in the Western world and was generally based upon on a faith in the
ability of the human beings to express hidden truth by the use of imagination, emotion and inspiration.
Romanticism, furthermore, put emphasis on emotions and individualism as well as glorification of the
past and awe in the beauty of nature.

Accordingly, one of the best well-known poets of this era was William Wordsworth.
Wordsworth’s poetry showed extreme adoration to nature and called for preserving the people’s
common home as it coincides at the moment when Britain industrialized itself. Moreover, Wordsworth’s
romanticism views poetry as ‘spontaneous overflow of emotions recollected in tranquility.’ Thus,
romanticism believes that poetry should be simple, natural, unadorned language and most of all, should
‘represents the nature of reality.’

There is right timing here in this present study. In this present age where people no longer
regard our mother nature this study, in its little way, would again herald to revere nature wonders and
call for people to get away from lifestyles that caused environmental degradation. Today, undeniably,
people tend to start embracing the throwaway culture. They have forgotten that they themselves are
from dust of this earth; the meat of their body is molded out from the clay of this earth, the air they
breathe, the life and the refreshment from the waters, all comes from this planet they are living. Hence,
this is now the time to reflect to the wrong done against nature; the earth today is burdened and laid
waste and is among of those abused, abandoned and maltreated. Thus, people must take action.

Pope Francis I in his encyclical titled “Laudato Si” critiqued consumerism and irresponsible
development, laments environmental degradation and global warming, and calls all people of the world
to take ‘swift and unified global action’.

Most environmental disasters don’t happen overnight. They are incremental, indeed. If
solutions are sought to these problems, then everyone must work to restore the beauty and
magnificence of nature. If people will continue to work towards advancement without considering the
environmental concerns, what will happen to our surroundings.
 These present ecological crises we felt and observed are no big joke. The effects of eco-
catastrophe, such as flooding and desertification are not anymore a distant threat. This is now the time
to re-examine the fragility of the planet and nature, and its connection and relationship to people.
People once and for all must take responsibility to the damage they have done against the mother
nature.

According to Pope Francis I encyclical, pollution and climate change have become part of
people’s daily experience. Atmospheric pollutants produce a broad spectrum of health hazards and have
caused millions of premature deaths. Each year tons of garbage and toxic waste are generated.

The earth is people’s home, shelter, sister and mother who embraces them even if it hurts. Sadly,
people have come to the point where they set themselves as the masters entitled to plunder the goods
with which God has endowed to the planet. In fact, people, as the Bible says, are the steward of God’s
creation but ironically, they become the lords of it instead.

People have only one home, one mother with whom they share their lives. Protect and conserve her
(Mother Earth) for the posterity.

Together with St. Francis of Assisi, people ought to praise her saying:

“Praise be to you, my Lords, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who
produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs (Canticle of Creatures 1999: 113-114).”

Related Studies

On Romanticism

In the study of Bologa and Doncillo (2015) titled “Nature in Robert Frost’s poetry”, which aimed
to analyze the poem of Robert Frosts using Shih-Yen-Chih romanticism asserted that romanticism are
feelings and emotions expressed by the lines focused more on giving one’s heart solace which pertains
to its beauty. Furthermore, they stated that in the eternal battle between feelings and rationality,
romanticism gave priority to sensitivity over logic to images over pure ideas. However, romanticism was
preceded by a long period of preparation: it was not borne out of the crises that made its development
easy. Thus, it had been waiting for some time to blossom.

In the study made by Saga Sigurðardóttir (2016) titled “Romanticism in Two Countries: A
Comparison of its Effect on Literature, Culture and Politics in Iceland and England” stated that
romanticism had a significant impact on literary history and its effects can still be felt in current
literature. It shares some common themes such as style, a focus on the imagination, the connection
between the individual and nature, and the importance of symbols, figurative language, and myths.
However, throughout Western Europe the impact of Romanticism differed from place to place as each
nation interpreted this literary movement in its own way. Therefore, the best approach to define
romanticism is from the standpoint of each specific nation, through looking at how each nation
constructed its own version of the movement, and how the movement in turn affected the nation’s
history, culture and literature.
 Felix Ladeño (2012) study titled “Wordsworth Green-field Sacramentalism: An Ecocriticism”
which touched on beliefs of Romanticism and environmental concerns found in Wordsworth’s poetry.
He proclaimed that nature is not just portrayed in romantic art or literature, but it is also portrayed in a
romantic way. The emphasis is on the pure, simple beauty of nature. Hence, we must preserve our
nature and heed Wordsworth’s poetry advice and messages. Benazon (1975) as cited by Ladeño, termed
romance as a type of prose fiction which draws on non-realistic materials and which introduces
situations that are products of the imagination. Ladeño, further stated that romanticism is the nature of
both a spirit and a method in art and literature, as contrasted to classicism, it means the introduction of
the artist’s hopes and ideals, his personality, into his work, and the attempt to suggest more that can be
definitely expressed.

On Wordsworth’s Romanticism

The study of Margaret Jane, faculty of University of Louisville, (1916) titled “The attitude of the
Romantic poets towards nature” attempted to portray the different roles that nature has played in the
poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Byron. The study result shows that Wordsworth’s
approach to nature is more personal, intimate and perfect in its way. She asserted that nature has been
truly called a "maker of poets" without nature there would be no nature-savvy poet like Wordsworth
and Coleridge. She even said that one characteristic that can be found in Wordsworth is poetic
imagination which she claimed not present to others as they’ve different approaches and methods in
forming their poetry. However, in her study it surfaced that all the poets’ inspiration in the romantic
period came mostly from their external environment.

Roxanne Laodenio and Myla Jepollo, (2013) in their study titled “The Supremacy of the Author:
Concepts of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Friendship Reflected in their Poems”, that deals to the strong
bonds of friendship built upon 33 years of collaboration proved to be profound and intense. Hence, the
development and discovery of the Romantic period was attributed partly due to their extensive
contribution. Furthermore, their study asserted that Wordsworth’s romanticism is very much grounded
on his closeness to nature and God, to natural instincts, pleasure brought about by the nature and the
‘truth that can be found in the true standards of men.’ Moreover, they affirmed that authors construct
and create their poetry and identity based on their experiences and involvements. They also give advice
that in critiquing Wordsworth’s romanticism in poetry one should begin to determine first what might
have been the author’s intention because the origins of the authors’ ideas and thoughts reveal the real
nature of the object and then afterwards judge the poem as a whole.

Serrano and Lapid in their book “English Communication Arts and Skills: Through British,
American and Philippine Literature” noticed three things on Wordsworth: First, he loved to be alone and
was never lonely when with nature; Second, he felt the presence of some living spirit in nature, real
though unseen, companionable though silent; Lastly, the impressions he recorded in his poems are
similar to our own and are delightfully familiar.

Carlson (2006), as cited by Ladeño, analyzed how Wordsworth turned his back on worn poetic
diction and classical rhetorical figures. He further said that (he) makes his own language which is ‘set in
the standards of men,’ plain but with force and with ‘gentle shock of mild surprise.’
 Ladeño (2012) in his study on Wordsworth’s Sacramentalism echoed that Wordsworth
abandons the aesthetic formalism of the picturesque and sanctifies transcendent self-conscious, but this
transcendence still depends on trips through the countryside and on Wordsworth’s poetry. Moreover,
he said that he (Wordsworth) hope to direct the journeys and modes of seeing and supervising cultural
education, reworking the intellectual meanings of the individual, leisure, and the land itself.

Similarities and Differences between the Present Study and those Reviewed

The study is similar with that of Bologa and Doncillo (2015) because they use romanticism as
their core theory in analyzing literary text. This study is different to that of them because they utilized
Shih-Yeh-Chi romanticism in analyzing Robert Frost poetry while this study use Wordsworth’s
romanticism as a guide in analyzing Dr. Jose Rizal’s poetry pieces.

Laodenio and Jepollo’s study (2014) is similar to the present study since they used romanticism
to determine Wordsworth and Coleridge friendship that leads to the foundation of Wordsworth’s
romanticism. They are different because the authors’ focal point of research is the Supremacy of their
Friendship. Moreover, they also incorporated Romantic Expressive theory as the guide of their study, in
contrast, this research will use Wordsworth’s signpost as lead questions to the analysis of Rizal’s poetry.

The study of Margaret Jane, faculty of University of Louisville, (1916) is similar to this because
she determined the position of nature to that of Wordsworth’s romanticism. They are different because
this study concerned the love of nature portrayed by Jose Rizal in his poems and not of Wordsworth and
other known famous poet of romantic period.

In the study made by Saga Sigurðardóttir (2016) it is similar to this because he studied and
compared Iceland and England using the theory of Romanticism. In contrast to this study, his research
focused more on the developments and effects of theory of Romanticism to England and Iceland
Literature, Culture and Politics while this study employed Theory of Romanticism, specifically of
Wordsworth, as a guide throughout the study.

The study conducted by Felix Ladeño (2012) is similar to this study because he incorporated
Wordsworth’s romanticism as his core theory in analyzing Wordsworth’s poetry in line with nature to
produce a reflection on the present environmental crises and call for environmentalism. It is different
because this study subjected the poems of Dr. Jose Rizal for analyzation to determine the tenets of
romanticism found in his poetry and to draw implications towards teaching literature. Furthermore, this
study did not incorporate the theory of ecocriticism which is one of the core theories he used in his
study.

Chapter III

METHODOLOGY

… What we have loved,

Others will love, and we will teach them how,

Instruct them how the mind of man becomes

A thousand times more beautiful than the earth

On which he dwells, above this frame of things

(Which, ‘mid all revolution in the hopes

And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)

In beauty exalted, as it is itself

Of quality and fabric more divine.

-William Wordsworth, from the Prelude

Background of the Author

Dr. José Protasio Rizal Mercado (y) Alonso is a unique example of a many-splendored genius
who became the greatest hero of the nation. Endowed by God versatile gifts he truly ranked with the
world geniuses. He was an ophthalmic surgeon, poet, dramatist, essayist, linguist, naturalist,
grammarian, philosopher, humorist and educator. Beyond of all of these titles he was a hero and a
political martyr who consecrated his life for the redemption of his country and the oppressed people.

Jose Rizal was born on the moonlit night of Wednesday, June 19, 1861, in the Lakeshore town of
Calamba, Laguna Province, Philippines. He was the seventh of the eleventh children of Francisco
Mercado Rizal and Teodora Alonzo Realonda. His Father, studies Latin and Philosophy at the College of
San Jose in Manila. His father was a hardy and independent man who talked less and worked more, and
was strong in body and valiant in spirit. He died in Manila on January 5, 1898, at the age of 80. In his
student memoirs, Rizal affectionately called him “a model of the fathers.”

The Rizal’s home, as described by Dr. Rafael Palma- one of Rizal’s distinguished biographers, was
high and even sumptuous with sliding shell windows. Thick walls of lime and stone bounded the first
floor; the second floor was made entirely of wood except for the roof, which was of red tile. Behind the
house were the poultry yard full of turkeys and chickens and a big garden of tropical fruit trees- atis,
balimbing, chico, macopa, papaya, santol, and tampoy. It was a happy home where parental affection
and children’s laughter reigned. By day, it hummed with noises of children at play and songs of the birds
in the garden. By night, it echoed with the dulcet notes of family prayers. The Rizal Family belonged to
the principalia, a town aristocracy in Spanish Philippines. It was one of the distinguished families in
Calamba.”

His natal town Calamba, so named after a big native jar, was a fitting cradle for a hero. Its scenic
beauties and its industrious, hospitable, and friendly folks impressed him during his childhood years and
profoundly affected his mind and character. The happiest period of Rizal’s life was spent in his lakeshore
town. In his boyhood memoirs he narrated that at the age of three he watched the garden cottage, the
culianan, the maya, the maria capra, the martin, the pipit and other birds he listened ‘with wonder and
joy’ to their twilight songs.”
 He was a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the tail end of the Spanish colonial period of
the Philippines. An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the
Filipino Propaganda Movement which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain.

He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime of rebellion after an anti-colonial
revolution, inspired in part by his writings, broke out. Though he was not actively involved in its planning
or conduct, he ultimately approved of its goals which eventually led to Philippine independence. He is
widely considered one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines, and is implied by Philippine law to be
one of the national heroes. He was the author of the novels Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo, and a
number of poems and essays.

To tout his laurels, Teofilo Tuazon best described Jose Rizal saying:

“No man of letters has ever lived more beautifully, thought more nobly, and suffered more deeply than
Jose Rizal.”

Rizal’s Poetry

Rizal wrote mostly in Spanish, the lingua franca of the Spanish Philippines, though some of his letters
(for example Sa Mga Kababaihang Taga Malolos) were written in Tagalog. His works have since been
translated into a number of languages including Tagalog and English.

Indeed, Rizal is a literary giant. His contribution to the world of literature is ad infinitum. He is a
celebrated writer and poet even during his time until now.

Rizal’s poetry is mostly written in Spanish and a drizzling in Filipino. Due to the environmentalism and
delight portrayed by Rizal’s poems, fortunately, almost all of it had been translated to English. These
translators who diligently did the rendition were: Charles E. Derbyshire, Austin Craig, Frank C. Laubach,
Alfredo Gonzalez, F. M de Rivas, Nick Joaquin, Leon Guerero, and Alfredo Veloso. These are people who
labored to render the poems in their English and Filipino version so that today we savor the essence of
it.

His poem “Flowers among Flowers” (Flor Entre Flores) is originally written in Spanish. It is an incomplete
madrigal inspired by a precious young girl. This poem is a 48-lined verse which talks about romance
centered in the alluring beauty the poet's object of affection. Rizal indicated in this poem that this girl is
a flower among flowers that stands out with her soft bud which brings joy to all she meets. It seen in the
poem that this girl manifests that life without sorrow is possible with her as mentioned as rose with no
thorns.

Rizal conducted his school at his home in Talisay, near Dapitan, where he had his farm and hospital. His
favourite rendezvous with his boys was under a Talisay tree, after which the place was named. In honor
of Talisay, he wrote a poem titled (Himno A Talisay) “Hymn to Talisay” for his pupils to sing.

In Calamba, where he was born, a town ‘nestling on a verdant plain covered with irrigated rice fields and
sugar-lands.’ Our sensitive patriot was deeply impressed to the picturesque of the town somnolent
mountain and emerald lakes. That, during his early childhood, he likes to contemplate the emerald
waters beneath the canopy of azure skies, and later back home write a poem about the feelings he
experienced. Rizal loved Calamba with all his heart. With nostalgic feelings, accordingly, he wrote “In
Memory of My Town” (Un Recuerdo a Mi Pueblo) where he praised the beautiful town, Calamba.

In February, 1895, Doña Teodora, with her eyesight fully restored, returned to Manila. During
her long stay in Dapitan, she saw how busy her talented son was and regretted that he had neglected
the Muses. She requested him to write poetry again. In response to her request, Rizal wrote a beautiful
poem about his serene life as an exile in Dapitan and sent it to her on October 22, 1895. This poem was
“My Retreat” (Mi Ritero), which is acclaimed by literary critics as one of the best ever penned by Rizal.

“To the Flowers of Heidelberg” (A Las Flores de Heidelberg). In the spring of 1886, Rizal
was fascinated by the blooming flowers along the cool banks of the Nekar River. Among them was his
favorite flower- the light blue “forget-me-not”.

Jose Rizal had a soul of a genuine artist. Rather an introvert child, with a skinny physique and sad dark
eyes, he found great joy looking at the blooming flowers, the ripening fruits, the dancing waves of the
lake, and the milky clouds in the sky; and listening to the songs of the birds, the chirping of the cicadas,
and the murmurings of the breezes, he takes long walks in the meadows and lakeshore.

It is observed that Rizal composed few poems abroad at the height of his creative
powers. Sorrow and handiwork and endless love for country dominated his poetry. There was, however,
a different Rizal; it is the Rizal who could poetically react to his immediate environment.

However, Rizal’s wrote his later poems, his best poetry in Dapitan, Mindanao, and in Fort
Santiago, Manila as a political prisoner. In Dapitan he wrote five poems; one addressed to his political
custodian, Don Ricardo Carnicero, one to his wife Josephine Bracken; one to his mother, “Mi Ritero”, a
hymn in connection with the fiesta in Talisay, Dapitan “Hymn To Talisay” and “Canto del Viajero”.

In connection, Rizal’s adherence awed to nature which poses sprinkling of romanticism was used
in the conceptualization in this study using Wordsworth’s romanticism. The signposts are:

what is/are the action (s)/situation (s) described?

what feeling(s) or emotion(s) is recollected in tranquility?

is the language used that of here and now? colloquial? Formal? Or conversational?

what are the metaphors? The similitude in dissimilitude?

On the other hand, the researchers tried to reflect upon the result of this study on preservation and
conservation of our ecosystem and draw implications to teaching language and literature.

Research Design

This descriptive analytical study focused on the analysis of Jose Rizal’s poetry using Wordsworth’s
romanticism.

A close reading to the poems was done infused with textual analysis to understand the poetic content of
the poems of Rizal.
Being qualitative, the study utilized an in-depth analysis of the lines to come up implications on both the
environment and the teaching of language and literature.

Each of the poem was treated based on Wordsworth’s romanticism.

Research Procedure

The researchers read Jose Rizal’s poetry pieces. Afterwards, the researchers re-read the poems
and chose those poems containing elements of Wordsworth’s romanticism. Those that reflect rural
landscape, wildlife, and all that presents reverence to nature. This study followed a definite procedure
to come up with a reliable and precise analysis of the medium used. The hereunder statements
systematically developed the course of this study.

The researchers beforehand read Jose Rizal’s poetry to determine those that contains naturalistic
themes.

The researchers selected ten (10) predetermined poems of Jose Rizal as samples of the present study as
the researchers believe that those poems contain naturalistic themes.

During the textual analysis process, the researchers found out that five (5) poems do not contain any
naturalistic themes, hence, the omission of them.

The remaining five (5), those which contain elements on rural landscape, wildlife, and all that presents
reverence to nature were extracted and treated as subject of the analysis.

The researchers then after extracting those poems containing naturalistic themes examined the tenets
of romanticism found in Rizal’s poem. Afterwards, the researchers analyzed it based on Wordsworth’s
romanticism (action and situation, feelings recollected in tranquility, language used and similitude in
dissimilitude) through textual analysis.

The researchers after thorough examination related the result to conservation and preservation of
people’s ecosystem and drew implications in the teaching of language and literature.
Chapter IV

PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA

The Tenets of Romanticism

Romanticism views poetry as the product of one’s inner feelings and intuitions perceived by an
individual with a desire to return to the origins. It centers on the admiration of objects, going back to
nature, spontaneous overflow of feelings that when reminisce even if one is already detached from the
external stimuli or actual environment perceived by the senses one can still vibrantly remember the
feelings and emotions he/she experienced evoking a new but corresponding emotion resulting to
creation of new ideas; using simple language, commonly uttered by ordinary people.

Flower among Flowers

The speaker in the poem “Flower Among Flowers” transcends his perception in appreciating
how beautiful the flower is. It is so calm and undisturbed. This signifies the fervent admiration of the
speaker to its surroundings; which is one of the elements of romanticism as enunciated by Wordsworth
himself in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads. This also implies that the speaker can immediately relate to his
immediate environment. Its fragrance and candor capture his attention.

“Flower among flowers,

soft bud swooning,

that the wind moves

to a gentle crooning.

Wind of heaven,

wind of love,

you who gladden

all you espy;

you who smile

and will not sigh,

candor and fragrance

from above;”

This confirms De la Rosa’s (2003) words which express that the feeling developed therein gives
importance to the action and situation, not action and situation to the feelings.

Great art, by the romantic view, was the expression, in new, appropriate language, of the basic moral
and aesthetic truths that would bring happiness to human beings. The speaker, while fascinated with
the flower the speaker remember that flowers give colors and treatment to weary souls.

“They say you spread

good everywhere

like the Spring

which fills the air

with joy and flowers

in April time.

They say you brighten

the soul that mourns

when dark clouds gather,

and that without thorns

blossom the roses

in your clime.

Thus confirms Wordsworth’s words in his famous Preface to Lyrical Ballads which says that man and
nature are essentially adapted with each other, that man is naturally a mirror of the interesting
properties of nature, that without nature man is not a living thing.

Nature for romanticist poets is a very essential element to produce a robust and magnificent
masterpiece of poetry. The idea of sublime is of vital importance for the romanticist poet. It has been
constantly discussed as the ‘strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling.’

Delight by the blossomed flowers, by the immediate environment that comforts him, and by the
goodness that he feels everywhere brought by the surroundings, the speaker compared the flower to a
fairy that enhances and brings joy to the soul.

“If then, like a fairy, you enhance the joy

Of those on whom you glance with the magic charm

God gave to you;”

Hymn to Talisay

The poem, “Hymn to Talisay” is said to have been written by Rizal as a praise to the Talisay tree which is
a favorite rendezvous of his boys when he was still a teacher.

The speaker admires the beautiful budding of flowers that emits from the tree. Its foliage that gives
shade from the scorching heat of sun, and its freshness that evokes delight. The speaker gives honor and
awe to the Talisay tree, “In your vales that flowers adorn, and your fruitful leafy shade, our thinking
powers are being made, and soul with body being grown.”

Spontaneity of feelings recollected in tranquility stems from the speaker’s intense recollection
of the magnificence of the tree, the place, the vales, the mountains, and rocks, “At Dapitan, the sandy
shore, and rocks aloft on mountain crest, form thy throne, O refuge blest, that we from childhood days
have known.”

The speaker views, turning back to nature, recoiled some of his fond memories of the place,
“With our games we churn the sand, through the caves and crags we roam, on the rocks we make our
home, everywhere our arms can reach.”

Thus confirms Waugh’s (2006) study which says that romanticism go back and look at early childhood
and traditional rural labor conditions.

In Memory of My Town

The speaker in the poem “In Memory of My Town” presents mystic communion to nature which
suffuses the whole structure of the poem. The speaker exalts rural life and external nature over urban
life. The speaker’s views bring him back to his childhood memories.

“When Early Childhood’s happy days

In memory I see once more

Along the lovely verdant shore

That meets a gently murmuring sea;

When I recall the whisper soft

Of zephyrs dancing on my brow

With cooling sweetness, even now

New luscious life is born in me.”

Thus confirms the words in the book Elements of Literature which says that romanticism relates always
to being fascinated with youth and innocence.

Nature has its ways of leading people to enjoy the reminiscence of unforgotten experiences that is
converted into a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings when the speaker is alone and in rest. While
privately and peacefully resting, the speaker pictures his childhood days. The same natural ambience is
recalled. He is reminiscing the moment when he held a lily, “When I behold the lily white that sways to
do the wind’s command, while gently sleeping on the sand the stormy water rests awhile.”

The speaker admires very much the picturesque of the town that is nestling on a verdant plain with
inland lake of emerald waters, “I Yet recall a village plain, … Besides the freshly cool lagoon, - the spot
for which my heart beats warm.” The lines also signify the simple rural life that the speaker experiences
during his childhood days.

This confirms Waugh’s (2007) words which says that romanticism looks at early child hood and rural life
conditions.

There is the feeling of gratefulness to the Sonnum Bonum, the arousing and enjoying emotions while
intently looking at the azure sky:

“I saw the Maker in the grandeur

Of your ancient hoary wood,

Ah, never in your refuge could

A mortal by regret be smitten;

And while upon your sky of blue

I gaze, no love nor tenderness

Could fail, for here on nature’s dress

My happiness itself was written.”

There is a relief in the distant past in the speaker’s sorrows. Finding oneself and doing away
from the hustle-bustle of the world, the speaker turns to nature as a remedy during dismal hours, “Rich
fount of my felicities, oh those harmonious melodies which put to flight all dismal hours.”

My Retreat

“My Retreat” extols a place of peace and solitude where one likes to go to be able to think or work well.
It describes an ideal place for a retreat where one can withdraw into privacy and where one can enjoy a
period of seclusion for prayer and meditation.

The speaker retreated into a mortified wounded silence away from the hustle-bustle of the city and
sought stillness of the woods and seas, repose from overthinking and from grief. The woodlands and
seas gives relief to the speaker. Finding oneself and doing away from chaotic environment and returning
to nature become the remedy of the speaker, “From the forest seeking peace and calmness divine, rest
for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow’s keen”.

The speaker enjoys the panoramic view of the purling brook, the melody of the zither, the still sky and
the murmuring sea, “When the sky is serene how gently it flows, and its zither unseen ceaselessly
plays.”

Nature has its ways of delighting people. One body that becomes an object of admiration by the speaker
is the native brooks. Brooks is a sign of intensified sense of delight of the external nature and rural life
experience. Such a delight the speaker experiences as he sees an overflowing brook from the jungle
descending from huge boulders giving a current through bamboo pipes, “A purling brook from the
woodland glade, drops down o’er the stones and around it sweeps, whence a fresh stream is drawn by
the rough cane’s aid.”

The serenity of the surroundings gives the speaker a sense of oneness with the universe. The deafening
silence, the barking of the dog and the twittering of the birds, the sea and woodland and mostly, there is
no nuisance of a neighbor and a boastful man; this adheres to one tenet of romanticism which is feelings
recollected in tranquility. The solitude felt by the speaker leads to a creation of beautifully written lines.
It is in romanticism where the beauty of object is seen as it is and when reminisced the attraction
increases.

“The howl of the dog and the song of the bird,

And only the Kalao’s hoarse call resound;

Nor is the voice of vain man to be heard;

My mind to harass or my steps to begird;

The woodlands alone and the sea wrap me around.”

The lines of the poem, therefore, corroborate with Bloom’s study (2007) which says that
romanticism celebrates the common, human heart and the nature that cares for and refreshes the
heart. Indeed, nature gives comforts and solace to weary hearts.

To the Flowers of Heidelberg

The poem “To the Flowers of Heidelberg”, the speaker admires the beautiful natural surroundings.
Nostalgic of his country, the beautiful spring flowers reminded him of the blooming flowers in Calamba.
The speaker conversing with the flowers commands it to deliver his love to his native land:

“Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers

Sown by the travelers on his way

And there, beneath its azure sky

Where all my affections lie

There from the weary pilgrim say,

What faith is his in that land of ours!”

Lourdes M. Ribo, et al. (2010) stated that romantic era was characterized by an emphasis on individual’s
thoughts, which stemmed from a rebellion to tyrannical authority inspired by the French and American
Revolutions. In the context, this is highlighted when the persona shows an intuitive observation that
only he can imagine in a passive yet spontaneous overflowing of vibrant recollection while in oneness
with his surroundings especially of delight that the flowers bring. The speaker shows emotional
effusiveness to the present mood. He urges the flowers to bring peace, love, and virtue to his beloved
country and to his loved ones.

“Carry, carry, O flowers,

my love to my loved ones,

peace to my country and its fecund loam,

faith to its men and virtue to its women,

health to the gracious beings,

that dwell within the sacred paternal home.”

The speaker radiates an exceptionally attachment to the flowers, he awed at seeing the beauty of the
morning as it greets the flowers with its sunbeam, its fragrance gives delight to him. The speaker while
savoring the stillness and freshness of the flowers reminisces his native land, the azure sky and the
warming light, “…And with a mild warmth raises, to life again the valley, the glade, the forest, he hails
that sun, still in its dawning, that in his country in full zenith blazes.”

The speaker admires the beauty of the morning that he metaphorically relates its whispers as mirth. The
persona’s delight of his surroundings shows his mystic communion with nature: “Saw how when
morning’s light, all your fragrance stealing, Whispers to you as mirth, Playful songs of Love’s delight….”

The lines expressed by the poem confirms Wordsworth’s words stipulated in his Preface to
Lyrical Ballad which says that man and nature are essentially adapted to each other, that the mind of
man is naturally a mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature.

Language Used

On the whole, the language in the five (5) poems is everyday, direct, figurative, ordinary,
conversational, and plain all compartmentalized as simple. There is no attempt that seems to possess a
poetic diction. Most of lines in the poem speaks about the speaker’s experiences in the countryside
showing a certain coloring for the imagination of the readers. Moreover, Rizal’s poetry is seeming to be
the same style as of Wordsworth when it comes to the language used. It traced the ‘gentle shock of mild
surprise,’ and the ‘pause of deep silence’ in his poetry.

The table that follows presents the tenets of romanticism as highlighted in the five poems of
Jose Rizal.

Table 1

Tenets of Romanticism

Showing admiration for Objects of Nature

Turning Back to Nature

Spontaneous Emotions When reminisced

Using Simple Language

“Flower among flowers, soft bud swooning, that the wind moves to a gentle crooning

Wind of heaven,

wind of love,

you who gladden

all you espy;

you who smile

and will not sigh,

candour and fragrance

from above;
Flower among Flowers

“Wind of heaven,

wind of love,

you who gladden

all you espy;

you who smile

and will not sigh,

candour and fragrance

from above;

you who perhaps

came down to earth

to bring the lonely

solace and mirth,

and to be a joy

for the heart to capture.

““They say you spread

good everywhere

like the Spring

which fills the air

with joy and flowers

in April time.”

“They say you brighten

the soul that mourns

when dark clouds gather,

and that without thorns

blossom the roses

in your clime.”

Figurative/

Conversational

“In your vales that flowers adorn

And your fruitful leafy shade,

Our thinking powers are being made,

And soul with body being grown.”

Hymn To Talisay

“With our games we churn the sand,

through the caves and crags we roam,

On the rocks we make our home,

Everywhere our arms can reach.”

“At Dapitan, the sandy shore

And rocks aloft on mountain crest

Form thy throne, O refuge blest,

That we from childhood days have known.”

Figurative

“Ah yes! My footsteps insecure

In your dark forests deeply sank;

And there by every river’s bank

I found refreshment and delight;

Within that rustic temple prayed

With childhood’s simple faith unfeigned

While cooling breezes, pure, unstained,

Would send my heart on rapturous flight.”

In Memory of My Town

“Ah, tender childhood, lovely town,

Rich fount of my felicities,

Oh those harmonious melodies

Which put to flight all dismal hours,

Come back to my heart once more!

Come back, gentle hours, I yearn!

Come back as the birds return,

At the budding of the flowers.”

“When I behold the lily white

that sways to do the wind’s command,

while gently sleeping on the sand

the stormy water rests awhile;

when from the flowers there softly breathes

a bouquet ravishingly sweet,

Out-poured the newborn dawn to meet,

As on us she begins to smile.”

Direct

“A purling brook from the woodland glade

Drops down o’er the stones and around it sweeps,

Whence a fresh stream is drawn by the rough cane’s aid;

That in the still night its murmur has made,

And in the day’s heat a crystal fountain leaps.”

My Retreat

“By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine

At the foot of the mouth in its mantle of green

I have found a home in the pleasant grove’s confine;

In the shady woods, that peace and calmness divine,

Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow’s keen.”

“To see the same moon, all silver’d as of yore.

I feel the sad thoughts within me arise;

The fond recollections of the troth we swore.

Of the field and the bower and the wide seashore,

The blushes of joy, with the silence and sighs.”

Everyday
“Saw how when morning light, all your fragrance stealing, whispers to you as in mirth, playful songs of
Love’s delight. He, too, murmurs his love’s feeling in the tongue he learned at birth”

To the Flowers of Heidelberg

“Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers.

Sown by the traveler on his way.

And there, beneath its azure sky.

Where all my affections lie;

There from the weary pilgrim say,

What faith is his in that land of ours!

“Bear then, O flowers, love’s message bear;

My love to all the love’d ones there,

Peace to my country—fruitful land—

Faith whereon its sons may stand,

And virtue for its daughter’s care;

All those beloved creatures greet,

That still around home’s altar meet.”

Conversational
Wordsworth’s Romanticism

Wordsworth’s romanticism views poetry as spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings

recollected in tranquility. The feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation,
not action and situation to the feelings. It seeks to identify the action and situation; feelings and
emotions recollected in tranquility; the language used which is everyday, direct, figurative, ordinary,
plain and simple all compartmentalized as simple. There is no attempt to adopt poetic diction. Most of
the lines in the poem used words commonly used by country folks showing a certain color for the
imagination of the readers; the metaphors- similitude in dissimilitude.

Flower among Flowers

“Flowers among Flowers” describes the feelings of the speaker unending delight of the flower as
the wind gently caresses him, “Flower among flowers, soft bud swooning, that the wind moves to a
gentle crooning.”

It narrates the speaker’s immediate experience as he indulges himself on liking the flowers that he sees.
He feels its candor and smells its fragrance. He metaphorically says that the flowers perhaps are heaven-
sent to assuage lonely hearts, “You who perhaps came down to earth to bring the lonely solace and
mirth.”

The lines of the poem corroborate to that of Bloom (2007) who says that Wordsworth hallows the
commonplace, celebrates the common, human heart, and the nature that cares for and refreshes the
heart.

The lines have enlightening effects that weigh in the significance of the flowers to people. There is an
spontaneous overflow of emotions as the speaker savor the moment, “They say you spread good
everywhere like the Spring which fills the air with joy and flowers in April time.” The speaker further said
that flowers have healing powers; it brightens the lonely soul, “They say you brighten the soul that
mourns when dark clouds gather, and that without thorns blossom the roses in your clime.”
There are figures of speech that expresses the feelings of the speaker while being with nature. The
language used are direct, colloquial though structured figuratively.

“They say you spread

good everywhere

like the Spring

which fills the air

with joy and flowers

in April time.”

-Simile

“They say you brighten

the soul that mourns

when dark clouds gather,

and that without thorns

blossom the roses

in your clime.”

-Metaphor and Hyperbole

“If then, like a fairy,

you enhance

the joy of those

on whom you glance

with the magic charm

God gave to you;”

-Simile
Hymn to Talisay

The personas in the poem “Hymn to Talisay” seem to bring back to the scenery how their childhood
days in Dapitan were spent. This attraction augmented the speakers’ attraction to the Talisay tree and
further reminisce, “With our games we churn the sand, through the caves and crags we roam, On the
rocks we make our home, everywhere our arms can reach.”

This adoration of the Talisay tree of the persona creates an intermingling nostalgic feelings and
deeper passions. The lines use figurative language to add color to the poem.

“At Dapitan, the sandy shore

And rocks aloft on mountain crest

Form thy throne, o refuge blest,

That we from childhood days have known.”

-personification/hyperbole

“In your vales that flowers adorn

And your fruitful leafy shade,

Our thinking powers are being made,

And soul with body being grown.”

-metaphor

The lines of the poem culled out validate the argument presented in the book Elements of
Literature which says that Wordsworth’s romanticism sought to move the minds of the people to gaze
around the charming beauty of nature. This also gives justice to the claims of Waugh (2006) who says
that romanticist contemplates the infinity of the mountains, groves, landscapes and the like.

In Memory of My Town

The speaker (Jose Rizal) in the poem “In Memory of My Town” reminisce the town of Calamba.
The speaker is impressed by its wonderful picturesque, its verdant plain, its emerald waters and canopy
of azure skies. An ordinary yet emphatic language is being communicated. The natural utterance reflects
the real language of nature.
“When Early Childhood’s happy days

In memory I see once more

Along the lovely verdant shore

That meets a gently murmuring sea;

When I recall the whisper soft

Of zephyrs dancing on my brow

With cooling sweetness, even now

New luscious life is born in me.”

According to Ladeño (2012) Wordsworth’s romanticism looks with joy at rediscovering what
seems a strange condition- the self-absorbed in nature. Thus, the lines expressed validate his views
based on his study.

Suddenly the speaker finds solace in his surroundings while walking, admiring, gazing at the
environment, suddenly there indwells on his mind a recollection of a place where he prayed at a temple,
relished the cooling breeze, and made his heart at peace. His surroundings pacify the uproar inside his
heart.

“Ah yes! My footsteps insecure

In your dark forests deeply sank;

And there by every river’s bank

I found refreshment and delight;

Within that rustic temple prayed

With childhood’s simple faith unfeigned

While cooling breezes, pure, unstained,

Would send my heart on rapturous flight.”

The speaker, speaking directly, is a pantheist. He equates and sees God in the forces and laws of the
universe, a sight so touching in its majesty. He praises nature like God: “For thy peace, thy bliss, and
tranquility, O Genius Good, so kind!”

The simplicity of the lines in the poem is conveyed by the speaker’s overflow of thoughts and
emotions in his language that is never mechanical. The language being direct and ordinary is used by the
poet to show the speaker’s emotions. Jose Rizal uses figurative language to give beauty to the lines.
“Ah, tender childhood, lovely town,

Rich fount of my felicities,

Oh those harmonious melodies

Which put to flight all dismal hours,

Come back to my heart once more!

Come back, gentle hours, I yearn!

Come back as the birds return,

At the budding of the flowers.”

-simile and metaphor

“When I recall the whisper soft

Of zephyrs dancing on my brow

With cooling sweetness, even now

New luscious life is born in me.”

-personification

“While cooling breezes, pure, unstained,

Would send my heart on rapturous flight.”

-Hyperbole

My Retreat

The speaker in the poem, “My Retreat” is in plain beach focusing the sight on the pristine sea waves and
the magnificence of the sky. The speaker built a hut beneath the pleasant orchard seeking the serenity
of the woods and relaxes in an expressionless mood.
“By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine

At the foot of the mouth in its mantle of green

I have built my hat in the pleasant grove’s confine;

from the forest seeking peace and calmness divine

rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow’s keen.”

According to the encyclical of Pope Francis Laudato Si (2015) he stressed that humans should
never forget that the meat of their body are from dust of this earth, molded out from the clay of this
earth. The speaker, while thanking and conversing to the storm and heaven-born breeze realizes he is
from dust and from dust he shall return, “That you knew of the hour my wild flight to ease, to cast me
back to the soil from whence I rose.”

The lines of the poem verify what Matthew Arnold’s views of Wordsworth’s poems, as cited by Ladeño
(2012) which says that nature has healthy effect, that nature has an extraordinary power, that there is
joy offered in the simple primary affections.

The feelings of the speaker are ignited while looking at the silvered moon. This adoration of the night-
sky imperceptibly created a complex mixed feelings of sadness on the persona which is an important
tool in exciting the feelings therein as it gives importance to the action and situation. On the whole, the
language used is plain and figurative.

“To see the same moon, all silver’d as of yore,

I feel the sad thoughts in me arise;

the fond recollections of troth we swore.”

-simile

“Of the field and the bower and the wide seashore,

the blushes of joy, with the silence and sighs.”

-polysyndeton

“The sea, ah, the sea! For me it is all,

And it massively sweeps from the worlds apart;

Its smile in the morn to my soul is a call,

And when in the evening my faith seems to pall,

It breathes with its sadness on echo to my heart.”

-personification and hyperbole

“The waves with their sighs tell of their woes-

Tales that are lost as they role in the heights”

-personification and simile

“Then from their heights the mountains groan,

And the trees shiver tremulous from great unto least;

The groves rustle plaintive and the herds utter moan…”

-assonance and personification

The lines of the poem confirm Bloom (2007) study which says that nature gives solace, refreshments and
ease to weary hearts.

To the Flowers of Heidelberg

“To the Flowers of Heidelberg” glorify the morning light emits by the sun. The speaker
savor and smell the fragrance of the flower that environs him. There is the feeling of delight and gaiety
while intently watching the blooming flowers.

“Saw how when mornings light,

All your fragrance stealing,

Whispers to you as in mirth,

Playful songs of Love’s delight,

He, too, murmurs his love’s feeling,

In the tongue he learned at birth.”

It is in romanticism that the beauty of object is seen as it is but when reminisce the feelings therein
increased and vibrantly remembered by the poet. In a visionary mood, with the slow pace of his
surroundings he finds himself at home. The speaker expresses his feelings towards the panoramic view.
He is fascinated by the beauty of the firmament where the sun’s height is the same as the Keenigsthul
Hill. The speaker praises the sun for giving light to the valleys, groves and woods.

“That when the sun of Keenigstuhl’s height

Pours out its golden flood,

And with its slowly warning light

Gives life to vale and grove and wood,

He greets that sun, here only upraising,

Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing.”

The lines corroborate to the words of Waugh (2006) who says that to a romanticist there is always a
romantic gaze stilled in contemplation of imminent nature, or of landscapes suggestive of infinity-
mountains, groves, landscapes, distant plains, seas and the like.

His perception of admiration transcends into intense feelings of recollection when the longing for his
country suffuse in his mind while looking advertently to the blooming flowers along the cool banks of
Neckar River.

“And tell there of that day he stood,

Near to ruin’d castle gray,

By Neckar’s banks, or shady wood,

And pluck’d you from beside the way,

Tell, too, the tale to you addressed,

And how with tender care,

Your bending leaves he press’d

‘Twixt pages of some volume rare.”

 The language used in this poem is direct because the speaker is addressing the flower as a
human directly. The speaker personifies the flower. The lines contain nostalgic emotions that weigh the
significance of the speaker’s country or place. The following lines are the metaphors of nature that
Rizal’s used:

“Saw how when mornings light,

All your fragrance stealing,

Whispers to you as in mirth…”

-Simile

“Playful songs of Love’s delight,

He, too, murmurs his love’s feeling,

In the tongue he learned at birth.”

-Metaphor

“That when the sun Keenigstuhl’s height

Pour out its golden flood,

And with its slowly warming light

Gives life to vale and grove and wood

He greets that sun, here only upraising,

Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing.”

-Hyperbole

“And when you come unto its shore,

This kiss I now on you bestow,

fling where the winged breezes blow;

That borne on them it may hover o’er

All that I love, esteem, and adore.”

-Personification/Hyperbole

The lines expressed in the poems confirms Patricia Waugh’s (2006) study which says that
romanticist poems look with joy in rediscovering on what it seems unestranged conditions: early
childhood, traditional rural labour, wise passiveness, and the self-absorbed nature.

The table that follows presents Wordsworth’s romanticism as highlighted in the five poems of Jose Rizal.
Table 2

Wordsworth’s Romanticism

Action and Situation

Feelings Recollected in Tranquility

Language Used

(Similitude in Dissimilitude)

Flower among Flowers

“Flower among flowers,

soft bud swooning,

that the wind moves

to a gentle crooning.”

(The speaker while intently looks at the flowers felt the caress of the wind)

direct/

colloquial

“They say you spread

good everywhere

like the Spring

which fills the air

with joy and flowers

in April time.”

-Simile

“They say you brighten

the soul that mourns

when dark clouds gather,

and that without thorns

blossom the roses

in your clime.”

-Metaphor and Hyperbole

“If then, like a fairy,

you enhance

the joy of those

on whom you glance

with the magic charm

God gave to you;”

-Simile

Hymn to Talisay
“With our games we churn the sand, through the caves and crags we roam, On the rocks we make our
home, everywhere our arms can reach.”

(The speaker, delights in remembering what he and his students used to do under the Talisay tree)

“At Dapitan, the sandy shore

And rocks aloft on mountain crest

Form thy throne, o refuge blest,

That we from childhood days have known.”

(The speaker reminisces the place where he used to be with his students)
figurative

“At Dapitan, the sandy shore

And rocks aloft on mountain crest

Form thy throne, o refuge blest,

That we from childhood days have known.”

-personification/

hyperbole

“In your vales that flowers adorn

And your fruitful leafy shade,

Our thinking powers are being made,

And soul with body being grown.”

-metaphor

In Memory of My Town

“When Early Childhood’s happy days

In memory I see once more

Along the lovely verdant shore

That meets a gently murmuring sea;

When I recall the whisper soft

Of zephyrs dancing on my brow

With cooling sweetness, even now

New luscious life is born in me.”

(The speaker remembers his luscious natal land)

“Ah yes! My footsteps insecure

In your dark forests deeply sank;

And there by every river’s bank

I found refreshment and delight;

Within that rustic temple prayed

With childhood’s simple faith unfeigned

While cooling breezes, pure, unstained,

Would send my heart on rapturous flight.”

(The speaker is euphoric in recalling places he used to be when he was younger and free)

Direct and Ordinary

“Ah, tender childhood, lovely town,

Rich fount of my felicities,

Oh those harmonious melodies

Which put to flight all dismal hours,

Come back to my heart once more!

Come back, gentle hours, I yearn!

Come back as the birds return,

At the budding of the flowers.”

-simile and metaphor

“When I recall the whisper soft

Of zephyrs dancing on my brow

With cooling sweetness, even now

New luscious life is born in me.”

-personification

“While cooling breezes, pure, unstained,

Would send my heart on rapturous flight.”

-Hyperbole

My Retreat

“By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine

At the foot of the mouth in its mantle of green

I have built my hat in the pleasant grove’s confine;

from the forest seeking peace and calmness divine

rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow’s keen.”

(The speaker rests from overthinking and repose from his griefs. He is being comforted by nature.)
“To see the same moon, all silver’d as of yore,

I feel the sad thoughts in me arise;

the fond recollections of troth we swore.

Of the field and the bower and the wide seashore,

the blushes of joy, with the silence and sighs.”

(The feelings of the speaker was ignited as he recollected in tranquility person(s)from the past)

plain/

figurative

“To see the same moon, all silver’d as of yore,

I feel the sad thoughts in me arise;

the fond recollections of troth we swore.”

-simile

“Of the field and the bower and the wide seashore,

the blushes of joy, with the silence and sighs.”

-polysyndeton

“The sea, ah, the sea! For me it is all,

And it massively sweeps from the worlds apart;

Its smile in the morn to my soul is a call,

And when in the evening my faith seems to pall,

It breathes with its sadness on echo to my heart.”

-personification and hyperbole

“The waves with their sighs tell of their woes-

Tales that are lost as they role in the heights”

-personification and simile

“Then from their heights the mountains groan,

…The groves rustle plaintive and the herds utter moan…”

-personification

“And the trees shiver tremulous from great unto least;”

-assonance

To the Flowers of Heidelberg

“Saw how when mornings light,

All your fragrance stealing,

Whispers to you as in mirth,

Playful songs of Love’s delight,

He, too, murmurs his love’s feeling,

In the tongue he learned at birth.”

(The speaker is delight by the magnificence of the sun and the morning light touches his skin.)
“And tell there of that day he stood,

Near to ruin’d castle gray,

By Neckar’s banks, or shady wood,

And pluck’d you from beside the way,

Tell, too, the tale to you addressed,

And how with tender care,

Your bending leaves he press’d

‘Twixt pages of some volume rare.”

(Nostalgic, the speaker was reminded of the flowers and loved ones back in his natal land. He is
homesick)

direct

“Saw how when mornings light,

All your fragrance stealing,

Whispers to you as in mirth…”

-Simile

“Playful songs of Love’s delight,

He, too, murmurs his love’s feeling,

In the tongue he learned at birth.”

-Metaphor

“That when the sun Keenigstuhl’s height

Pour out its golden flood,

And with its slowly warming light

Gives life to vale and grove and wood

He greets that sun, here only upraising,

Which in his native land is at its zenith blazing.”

-Hyperbole

“And when you come unto its shore,

This kiss I now on you bestow,

fling where the winged breezes blow;

That borne on them it may hover o’er

All that I love, esteem, and adore.”

-Personification/

Hyperbole
“We can find in Rizal the qualities and skills of an authentic Filipino who treasures our natural patrimony
and uses earth’s resources for the health and well-being of the people,”

-Roy Alvarez, Ecowaste Coalition President

Reflections for the Conservation and Preservation of the Environment

Jose Rizal is a champion for the preservation and conservation of the people’s environment.
People can immediately see in Rizal’s poems its naturalistic inclinations. He often uses nature to express
his ideas and hide some truths or ideals he wants to put across in his poetry. Poetry and nature becomes
his shield and relief in moments of crises and sorrows. There is always a romantic gaze at the
environment everywhere he goes and these channels strong and deep emotions to him. He sees beyond
from a simple object of nature. His poetry transcends and exalts nature in a manner that brings delights
and happiness not only to him but also pleasurable to the readers.

Six reasons have been found out based on the study done on the Jose Rizal’s poems on why people
should care for the environment:

The poem Flower among Flowers invokes for a clean environment which is essential for healthy living,
“They say you spread good everywhere like the Spring which fills the air with joy and flowers in April
time.” If people are to continue to be ignorant and will not change its ways and lifestyles the earth will
end up polluted and contaminated by toxins that have a harmful impact on people’s health. The earth,
people’s home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. Measures were taken
by different sector of the government but no certain measures are taken until, perhaps, after people’s
health has been irreversibly affected. People take sick, for example from breathing high levels of smoke
from fuels used in cooking or heating and from smoke-belching vehicles. Pollution becomes a daily part
of people’s lives. Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of health hazards,
especially for the poor, and causes millions of premature deaths. Hence, Jose Rizal reminds people to
take care for the nature as it gives joy and solace to human beings. According to Bobby Mcleod, an
Aboriginal Activist and Poet, “When the earth is sick and polluted, human health is impossible… to heal
ourselves we must heal our planet, and to heal our planet we must heal ourselves.”

Hymn to Talisay let people ask themselves like, “Will the posterity still have clean air to breathe? Will
they still have trees to climb up on? Will they still have rivers to swim?” These are questions that the
poem posits to which people should to ask within. These queries were made from the following lines:

“In your vales that flowers adorn

And your fruitful leafy shade,

Our thinking powers are being made,

And soul with body being grown.”

Will the children of tomorrows still have trees to climb on? Will there be trees were foliage serves as
shade? These are queries that people ought to answer since they are all busy for the nations progress to
the point that at times nature is compromised. Hence the poem reminds people that their great-great
and great grandchildren will still live and that they should make sacrifices today if they know the menace
that the future generations will have. People should realize what kind of environment they are handing
to the future. President Theodore Roosevelt once said “But there must be the look ahead, there must be
a realization of the fact that to waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land
instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children
the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”

“In Memory of my Town” the external environment of the speaker (Jose Rizal) was recollected as
exemplified by the following lines:

“When Early Childhood’s happy days

In memory I see once more

Along the lovely verdant shore

That meets a gently murmuring sea;

When I recall the whisper soft

Of zephyrs dancing on my brow

With cooling sweetness, even now

New luscious life is born in me.”

Calamba- a picturesque town nestling on a verdant plain covered with irrigated ricefields and sugar-
lands. Nostalgic, Rizal reminisces the emerald waters beneath the canopy of azure skies. Rizal loved
Calamba with all his heart and soul. Will people of the next generations still have the same feelings of
nature as felt by Jose Rizal in his hometown? Will they still cherish nature’s healing powers that gives
solace to the weary souls? These are the questions that people are to face before plundering the
environment. Nature, therefore, is the reflection of the people’s character. Jose Rizal loves nature,
hence, he is a naturalist and environmentalist; furthermore, it is seen in his character and mirrored in his
poetry.

People should always live and remember the maxim “Do not do unto others what you don’t want to do
unto you.” Nature gives people everything for free- clean air, clean water, beautiful landscapes,
breathtaking views and the like. People take so much from nature, but what do people give in return?
Pollution? The least people can do is by showing our appreciation to its beautiful firmament, to its
external beauty and by protecting and preserving the people’s common home- the earth. Pope Francis I
in his encyclical Laudato Si reiterates that the people’s sister (earth) cries for help because of the harm
inflicted on her by the irresponsible use and abuse of her goods by people. People see themselves as
masters and lords entitled to plunder the earth. Ironically, in Genesis, people were entitled by God as
steward of His creation but today people have become the masters of the earth. The violence presents
in the hearts of many is symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, water, in the air and in all forms of life.
The earth is burdened and laid waste.

My Retreat is for those busy people who have no time to ponder and reflect. According to Ladeño
(2012) busy people should find time to visit the countryside where beaches, farms, forests can be found
to savor fresh air and nature’s cool embrace. Hence, the poem offers that busy people should find time
to appreciate nature’s loveliness. The lines explicitly spoken about the nature’s power to heal oneself.
The treatment and relief nature’s offers to someone in sorrow and grief is very much seen in the first
stanza of the poem:

“By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine

At the foot of the mouth in its mantle of green

I have built my hat in the pleasant grove’s confine;

from the forest seeking peace and calmness divine,

rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow’s keen.”

People even for once in their lives should find themselves in one or in harmony of the creation. Rizal in
one of the lines spoke about the material universe created by the Sonnum Bonum. His boundless
affection for the soil, water, mountains and everything as it were a caress of God. The lines “That you
knew of the hour my wild flight to ease, to cast me back to the soil whence I rose” tells people to have a
sense of themselves. Since they are molded from dust to dust they are to return. People have forgotten
that they themselves are from the dust of this earth, that their very bodies are made up of the elements
of this earth, the air they breathe, the life they received, and the refreshing water that it offers. People
should come to realize that without nature, without the earth, without the environment there is also no
people. If men and women will not heed the call to turn a new leaf from their lifestyles that cause
degradation to the environment, people will see in the near future both nature and human resources
will deteriorate together.

The poem “To the Flowers of Heidelberg” narrates about the fascination that Rizal had while looking at
the blooming flowers called forget-me-not when he happened to be at the cool banks of Neckar River in
Germany. The following lines nostalgic feeling:

“Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers.

Sown by the traveler on his way.

And there, beneath its azure sky.

Where all my affections lie;

There from the weary pilgrim say,

What faith is his in that land of ours!”

The beautiful flowers reminded him of the blooming flowers at the garden of his home in Calamba. This
poem reminds people that Earth is People’s Home. It is where people live, so people should better take
care of it or would people rather live in a polluted dump? Paul McCartney said once “Out of all those
millions and millions of planets floating around there in space, this is our planet, this is our little one, so
we just got to be aware of it and take care of it.” If the poem is still unconvincing try to answer these
questions; “Will the next generation still have the same fascination as Rizal had? Will they still have
clean waters to refresh themselves? Will they still have the same colors, fragrance and flower like
forget-me-not? What are the people of today say to the future generation if they will ask about the
environment? People of today must give chance for the future generation so they may cherish the same
environment that people of today have.

There happened to have a lost in biodiversity. The earth’s resources are also being plundered because of
short-sighted approaches to the economy, commerce and production. The loss of forests and woodlands
entails the loss of species which may constitute extremely important resources in the future, not only
for food but also for curing disease and other uses.

The table that follows contains environmental preservation measures and corresponding lines
lifted from the poems.

Table 3

Environmental Preservation and Conservation

Line(s) from the poems

Environmental Preservation and Conservation Measures

Environmental concerns

“They say you spread good everywhere like the Spring which fills the air with joy and flowers in April
time.”

Flower among Flowers

Create a low-carbon society.

One that drastically reduces carbon dioxide emissions to stabilize climate change. The earth if freed
from air pollution would make people savor fresh air

Air pollution

Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces spectrum of health hazards, especially for the poor, and
causes millions of premature death

“In your vales that flowers adorn

And your fruitful leafy shade,

Our thinking powers are being made,

And soul with body being grown.”

Hymn to Talisay

Plant Trees to lower carbon dioxide in the air.

People who cut trees without permission from the DENR must be penalized.

Plant trees to prevent erosion, landslides, flashfloods and the like.

“When Early Childhood’s happy days

In memory I see once more

Along the lovely verdant shore

That meets a gently murmuring sea;

When I recall the whisper soft

Of zephyrs dancing on my brow

With cooling sweetness, even now

New luscious life is born in me.”

In Memory of My Town

Do not waste water.

Clean brooks and seashores.

Avoid throwing diapers and other toxins to the sea or to any body of waters.

Join clean-up in coastal areas

Close mining industry near coasts.

Depletion of natural resources especially on waters.

Water pollution.

Fresh water is being contaminate.

Fresh water is indispensable for human life and for supporting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

“By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine

At the foot of the mouth in its mantle of green

I have built my hat in the pleasant grove’s confine;

from the forest seeking peace and calmness divine,

rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow’s keen.”

My Retreat

Illegal loggers must be penalized. They are the reasons why flashfloods and the like happens.

There is grandeur in nature as people go busy in their daily routines. Hence, it is in solitude that one is
able to appreciate nature.

Stop throwing anything chemical products or toxins to beaches, lakes and rivers.

Deforestation

Waste in beaches, lakes and other body of waters.

Detergents and chemical products continue to pour in rivers, lakes and seas.

Slash and burn.

Kaingin.

“Go to my native land, go, foreign flowers.

Sown by the traveler on his way.

And there, beneath its azure sky.

Where all my affections lie;

There from the weary pilgrim say,

What faith is his in that land of ours!”

To the Flowers of Heidelberg

Do away from plucking flowers except if it is ready to be plucked.

Flowers manifest nature’s loveliness. Hence, people should never play with them.

Flowers are being plucked and thrown away in the streets and anywhere.

Flowers are seen wasted and trampled on the ground

IMPLICATIONS TO LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE TEACHING

From the very early days of American administration of the country, English was adopted as the
medium of instruction in schools to facilitate the indoctrination or Americanization of Filipinos. The late
historian Teodoro A. Agoncillo said that the introduction of the American type of education in the
Philippines laced ‘native ideas, customs and traditions and even national identity of the Filipinos in
danger of obliteration.’ These words of Agoncillo really is true even until today. Since time immemorial
Filipinos abreast different culture from Spanish colonization, American and Japanese occupation. The
influence of these cultures from different eras is pretty much solid and strong. Thus, even today in our
curriculum Filipinos are fascinated with foreign authors instead of its country’s local writers.

The reviewed poems of Jose Rizal show admiration to nature and caring for the environment. Hence
these ecological-friendly poems of Rizal should be taught and integrated in the curriculum.

With the advent of the k-12 Curriculum, education sector should encourage curriculum crafters to
integrate these poems that expresses love for the environment by streamlining Dr. Jose Rizal’s poetry.

Educationist should make sure that learners are effective accelerator of progress and one way of making
them as such is by instilling on them ecological values by using Jose Rizal’s poems as the vehicle of
inculcation. Every teacher wanted to produce a learner who knows how to manage well these natural
resources especially today that the earth is suffering from environmental degradation, it is more than
ever imperative to remind and to enlighten the posterity, the generation today, the learners of today to
take care, to stand and be the steward, that people ought to be, of the people’s common home- the
earth. People incessantly ask themselves, why is it that despite the richness of the Philippines human
and natural resources the Philippines is ranked always as poorest country in the world? Philippines is not
a poor country it is only a mismanaged economy, mismanagement of natural resources. Hence, today is
the time to anchor the curriculum and lessons to these ecological-friendly poems of Jose Rizal. This will
not only foster love for the environment but as well as nationalism in their hearts. They will not only
grow in love with the sweetness of the poem but also will develop patrimony. Moreover, the teaching of
language today is organized through teaching literature, so it is never difficult for the teacher anymore
to merge to the lesson teachings about environmental preservation. Hence, the term language in
literature.

Jose Rizal’s writings and poems created a hefty impact to the society. He showed to the world that “Pen
is mightier than sword.” Thus, this maxim must again echo in our society, education, school and
institution to call for unity in achieving these goals of preserving and conserving the people’s common
home- the earth and the best channel for this to be realized is to bring back ecological-friendly poems of
our local writers especially of Jose Rizal. This is the main reason why it is just and fitting that Filipinos
should get acquainted with him and his writings and this mission shall only be done by integrating and
teaching it to the classroom.

The teacher as front-liners has the obligation to instill into the hearts of the learners love for the
environment by teaching Rizal’s ecological-poems. The method is simple, contemporize it and anchor it
according to their levels of understanding.

Dr. Jose Rizal is oftentimes recognized by his writings such as: “Noli Me Tangere”, “El Felibusterismo”,
“My Retreat”, “Sa Aking Mga Kababata”, and “To the Filipino Youth”. However, there are still poems of
him that are left unchecked or in other words “not really famous” and beyond people’s knowledge.

The school, particularly Literature classes are the best channel in acquainting these poems and
writings to the students. However, it is sad to note that there are Literature teachers who seem
“strangers in their own heritage and culture” and they far better known foreign authors rather than Dr.
Jose Rizal or other local Filipino writers.

This implies that authorities particularly curriculum crafters should revisit the curriculum
specifically the content standards in every grade level. The content standards, basically, should contain
the needs and wants of the learners and embody the aspirations of the country. Dr. Jose Rizal’s poems
and writings should have a prominent place in literature classes, courses, programs and curriculum. In
such way, students can learn the foreign literature without lagging Filipino literature.

Furthermore, these poems of Dr. Jose Rizal do not only contain admiration for external
environment it also teaches every reader that without nature there is no tomorrow, there is no life, and
there is nothing to appreciate in the environment. Values such as caring for the nature embodies Dr.
Jose Rizal’s poetry, in this ground, it is a must that these poems be included in the curriculum.

In capsule, the researchers believe that Philippines is not a poor country it is only a mismanaged
economy, mismanagement of natural resources that when managed wonderfully the country will go
onwards bringing back the greatness of the Philippines.
Chapter V

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary

This study titled Romanticists Readings on Jose Rizal’s Selected poems centered on revealing
nature’s dazzling beauty and how nature influenced Rizal’s writings. Jose Rizal’s poems with naturalistic
themes were taken as samples using Wordsworth’s romanticism. The lines of every poem were closely
analyzed to draw reflections for the conservation and preservation of the environment and to draw
implications of Rizal’s poem to the teaching of language and literature. This study probed the tenets of
romanticism and also analyzed and identified in the context the place of Wordsworth’s romanticism on
every selected poem.

This descriptive-analytical study used an in-depth and careful analysis of the lines to come up
with reflections on the preservation and conservation of the environment. Five poems with naturalistic
themes or with touch of nature were reviewed in this study.

Through close reading of the text, it was discovered that majority of the poems selected
embody the desires to return to origin highlighting the intuitive power of imagination; admiration to
objects of nature and indwelling turning back to nature that leads to spontaneous overflows of emotion;
revolving around on the spontaneity of feelings impeded yet when recalled is vibrant that results the
creation of reflection expounded in a smooth rolling phrases of blank and lyric verses.

Most of Rizal’s poetry displays mystical experiences and union with the external nature like the
sea, lake, flowers, valleys, trees, groves, birds, mountains and on the field.

The spontaneity of feelings arises from a reminiscence of past encounter of nature and people
that is recollected in solitude. The language used though at times figurative in nature to create a
coloring is very simple, that of a country folk.

Jose Rizal’s selected poetry as viewed in Wordsworth’s romanticism contains the elements of
romanticism. The spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility or when the
speaker is in nature. The feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, not the
action and situation to the feelings. It sought to identify the action and situation; feelings recollected in
tranquility; the language used; and the similitude in dissimilitude.
 Jose Rizal is a person who can immediately relate to his external environment. His poetry always
looked at the vastness of the horizons while in solitude, talked about the time he spent in the beach,
hearing the twittering of the birds, watching the sea waves, and adore the mesmerizing sky.
Appreciation for the flowers, valleys, mountains and brooks were also contemplated. Reminiscences of
loved ones and admiration for inanimate object while alone were also reflected in his poems.

The recollection of powerful feelings occurs when the speaker happens to be in oneness with
nature or in solitude and when the imagination is in its highest hue.

The language used is simple and lyrical yet figurative. The language used are plain, colloquial,
figurative, conversational, direct, everyday and ordinary. The similitude in dissimilitude is expressed in
simile, polysedenton, personification, metaphor, and hyperbole.

The majority of the nature’s representation is on the delights at looking at the azure sky, the
firmament, the beauty of the gathering clouds, and the murmuring seas, the twittering of the birds, the
sounds of the brooks and the fragrant flowers. Moreover, nature serves as a haven for weary hearts and
for people looking for repose from overthinking and grief.

Jose Rizal poems, furthermore, center on the reverence of and admiration for nature. He sees
God in nature. He thanks God for giving us nature and all its goodness has to offer. Hence, he shows
conviction by instilling values of the natural gifts and salvage it from harm.

Human beings, therefore, rely on nature.

Conclusions and Implications

The findings led to the following conclusions:

Rizal poems embody the romantic elements of romanticism. The selected poems of Jose Rizal
bats for a simple life close to nature’s loveliness. Poetry of Jose Rizal expresses thoughts and ideals
through nature. This implies that romantic period characterized by the emphasis of individuals’ thoughts
by employing or using nature as a way of expressing the thoughts and ideals. Jose Rizal poems possess
the tenets of romanticism. It shows admiration to object of nature, the language is simple (because he
used to live in rural areas) yet figurative to show colors to the imagination to the readers’ mind. His
poems also contain lines caused by overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility. Rizal based
on the study retire from the busy world by turning his gaze or by being in solitude with nature. Hence,
the tenet turning back to nature. He reposes from overthinking from his grief and sorrow by being with
the murmuring sea, verdant shore, emerald waters, contemplating the magnificence of azure sky. This
implies that nature is made for human and there is nature to provides human being’s needs. Most of the
poems are set in the woods, seas, beach, brooks, mountains, valleys and the like to instill appreciation
and reverence for nature. This further implies that Jose Rizal’s selected poetry adheres to the tenets of
romanticism which are; admiration to nature or objects of nature, turning back to nature, spontaneous
emotions when reminisced create a vast pool of ides and using simple language.

Rizal’s poems adheres to that of Wordsworth’s romanticism theory. He sees God in nature. The
action and situation presented by Rizal’s poem give rise to the feelings and situation. The poems also
show that everytime he is with nature emotions become spontaneous when reminisced or recollected in
tranquility. The language used is simple because he is a simple countryside folk. The meaning of the
poem is understood and put across wonderfully because of its sweetness and simplicity. Its sentiments
and delights of environment is being appreciated by ordinary common people. Though he is not a nature
poet like Wordsworth, his poems contain elements of romanticism. The researchers found out that all of
the reviewed poems in this study employ nature as metaphor to real life situation.

In the preservation and conservation of environment, the environmental conservation

measures, corresponding lines, and environmental concerns are highlighted. The present environmental
issues and concerns become imperative to preserve the beauty of the surroundings so that the same as
Jose Rizal whenever people are sad, lonely, depress, and wants to have repose from hustle-bustle of the
world they can always find solace in looking and feeling the vastness and grandeur of nature followed by
a powerful feeling or emotions recollected in tranquility.

Jose Rizal, based on the reviewed poems, can immediately appreciate and relate his thoughts to his
environment. Thus, this implies that there is always a romantic gaze at the environment that channels
strong and deep emotions to a person. The richness of imagination occurs when a person is silenced in
awe to nature.

The researchers also found out that these poems of Jose Rizal contain ecological values that could
awaken learners and educators. Hence, the integration of these ecological-friendly poems of Jose Rizal is
deemed imperative.

Recommendations

The findings and conclusion of the study led to the following recommendations:

Rizal poems embody the elements of romanticism and Wordsworth’s romanticism. The researchers
would like to recommend that Rizal’s poetry be integrated in the different subjects/courses, like
Science-teachers could relate it to lessons on ecosystem; Social Sciences especially on Economics
teachers could relate the lesson on environmental preservation as economics tackles about managing
well natural and human resources; and on Character Education to foster love for environment and
nationalism.

Literature readers and teachers must have a close reading discussion, straight recitation or
interpretative reading for the students to understand and appreciate the romantic message of the
poems.

Teachers should anchor their lessons when discussing Rizal’s poems to ecological preservation and
conservation so learners would be awaken to act against environmental degradation.

The researchers also want to echo the same words as of Ladeño (2012), to wit: That issues on
environmental concerns are now trending and always in the headlines, curriculum planners and
designers should craft lessons or subject matter that would awaken everyone’s concerns for the
environment. Especially in literature classes, Jose Rizal’s poems with naturalistic themes should be
included in their lessons/syllabi and relate them to the present environmental concerns.
The teacher should also guide students in unlocking the meanings of difficult words, discriminate
between implied and explicit meaning, figurative from literal in the poem so learners will have a good
grasped of the poems’ messages. Teachers, when teaching, should unlock ideas or unfamiliar words
based on the idea presented by the context of the situation or best known as Context clues to further
enrich learners’ vocabulary.

Teachers should assign learners to read the poems in advance before discussing them in the class to
have a thorough analysis of their own.

The same words from Ladeño (2012), to wit: Nature is human beings’ comforting habitat. In the middle
of busy and hectic schedules people find time to turn back to nature and breathe in its coolness and
watch its wonders. Thus the researcher deemed it proper for the people to start making difference by
initiating, starting from oneself, activities to restore the environment by espousing advocacies on
environmental preservation and conservation.

The researchers would like to recommend that those researchers who want to embark to same kind of
research endeavor must first take a lesson or course on Literary Criticism so they will have a good
foundation in analyzing certain literary text anchored on their study.

The researchers recommended that Literary Criticism be taught to BEED (Bachelor in Elementary
Education) as it dwells on the theories and methods applied in the critical appreciation of literature as
an art form, especially the Theory of Romanticism, so they may be able to analyze and have a close
reading to every literary text especially that of Jose Rizal. They must be taught of Literary Criticism
because as the basic foundation of children’s knowledge they have the duty and liability to instill unto
them love for the environment and country by streamlining poems anchored to environmental
preservation and to that of Jose Rizal.

The researchers recommended that in doing an analysis or interpretation the teacher or researcher use
either Wordsworth’s or Shih Yeh Chih romanticism to further expound the poems messages about
caring the environment.

A similar study using Wordsworth’s Romanticism, Tenets of romanticism, and Ecocriticism streamlining
poems from different Filipino writers is recommended to increase the availability of literature and
resources.

Since only five poems were included in this study, the researchers recommended that future researchers
who wants to embark to same study look for other undiscovered or those not-so-famous poems of Jose
Rizal especially those containing naturalistic themes.

The researchers recommended that research focusing on the writings of Jose Rizal especially those that
speak of nature be conducted to further call for unity in the present crises which is environmental
degradation.

Ecocriticism is a theory which calls for environmental preservation, hence, it is recommended to have a
research using the theory to further enlighten human beings of the horrific challenges ahead to preserve
the environment.

A research about Jose Rizal’s nationalistic poems is hereby recommended to further instill nationalism,
patrimony and unity among the Filipinos.
The researchers recommended that a research focusing on the effectiveness of integration in the
classroom of Rizal’s eco-friendly poems be conducted.

A research about methods of teachers in inculcating love for environment and nationalism is
recommended.

Further research should be conducted that looks on nature representations and ecological values as
lifted from the poems or writings of other Filipinos.

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