Abstract

In Words and Battlefields: A Theoria on the Poem, Cirilo Bautista advances the thesis that there is such a thing as a Filipino epic and that it is key to nation-building.1 Well known for his long-form poetry, Bautista can be said to be taking a position on one of the main issues in the philosophy of poetry, namely the ontology or being of poems. I argue that his theory of the poem has three cornerstones, which I critique and evaluate through a close reading of the epic poem “The Cave.”