Florante and Laura

Francisco Balagtas (1788—1862) was a Filipino littérateur who is widely considered to be the Father of Tagalog Literature and continues to be revered as one of the Philippine’s greatest poets. He is best known for Florante at Laura, an epic awit that was published upon his release from a Manila prison in 1838. The poem closely mirrored his own love affair with María Asunción Rivera and their experiences dealing with the rich and powerful Mariano Capule. While a large majority of his work has been lost to time, Balagtas’ legacy on Filipino literature cannot be overstated; he wrote in his native language at a time where most Filipino literature was being written in Spanish and produced the only native Filipino poem to never fall out of print.