About

Florante at Laura by Francisco Baltazar (also known as Balagtas) is one of the masterpieces of Philippine literature. Florante at Laura is an abbreviation of the actual title which is: Pinagdaanang Buhay Nina Florante at Laura sa Kahariang Albanya: Kinuha sa Madlang Cuadro historico o pinturang nagsasabi sa mga nangyari nang unang panahon sa imperyo ng Gresya, at tinula ng isang matuwain sa bersong Tagalog. (The Life of Florante and Laura in the Kingdom of Albania: culled from historical accounts and paintings which describe what happened in ancient Greece, and written by someone who enjoys Tagalog verse.)

It is called an "Awit", which means in English "a song". Florante at Laura has 399 stanzas. In truth, the Awit is a poetic form which, in Florante at Laura, had, among others, the following characteristics:

1. 4 lines/stanza;

2. 12 syllables/line;

3. a rhyme scheme of AAAA (in the Tagalog manner of rhyming described by Jose Rizal in Tagalische Verskunst);

4. a slight pause on the sixth syllable;

5. each stanza is usually a complete grammatically-correct sentence;

6. each stanza is full of figures of speech (according to Fernando Monleon, Balagtas used 28 types in 395 instances throughout the poem);

7. the author is usually anonymous (this is because Francisco Baltazar specified that no part of his work should be reworded, and everything should be left in its original state, lest it be like other old stories that the meanings have changed over time)