Waray Literature and Kimball’s Critique of Contradictions in Eagleton’s Work

III

The Leyte Samar Heritage Center has a cozy bookstore called Kaaradman Library & Bookshop, which specializes in Visayas literature. They carry titles like Pinili: 15 Years of Lamiraw, Tinalunay: Hinugpong nga Panurat nga Winaray, and Sa Atong Dila: Introduction to Visayan Literature. I picked up Bagulaya’s Writing Literary History there. Afterwards, I headed to Dunkin’ Donuts on Salazar Street and devoured the book over donuts and iced coffee. It was dusk. The first page I read was Bagulaya’s critique of modernist literature.

Both Brooks and Richards obviously privilege the language of poetry. But this privileging denies practical logic which makes poetry anti-logic. It reduces the poem to New Critical sophistry. No wonder Brooks appreciated Donne’s poem for its paradox: “The lovers in rejecting life actually win the most intense life” (Brooks 1972, 38). From the above sophistry, it is obvious that New Criticism is not only anti-practical logic, it is at the same time metaphysical. They are able to resolve the apparent contradictions not in the material reality, but in metaphysical space of the poem. Moreover, the notion that poetry is different from the normal prose language because it uses metaphor is also unacceptable. As critic Terry Eagleton counters, “the idea that there is a single normal language, a common currency shared equally by all members of a society, is an illusion” (1983, 5). (Bagulaya 100 emphasis added)

IV

The following applies Kimball’s critiques, originally directed at Eagleton, to Bagulaya’s “The Ideology of Modern Waray Poetry,” examining the parallels point by point.

Forcing Everything into a Marxist Framework

Kimball’s criticism of Eagleton: His discussion of aesthetics “transforms a philosophical innovation into a dramatic example of class warfare… as if reason were a feudal lord oppressing the serfs of sensation” (24). Bagulaya does exactly this. He takes poems that appear to be about personal, intimate experiences – such as Victor Sugbo’s “Kan Margaret,” which is simply about an uncle leaving his niece (Bagulaya 110) – and forces them into an allegory of “city vs. countryside,” “center vs. periphery,” and “semifeudal exploitation.” Just as Kimball accused Eagleton of twisting Baumgarten’s aesthetics into a narrative of political oppression, Bagulaya reduces every line of poetry to a symptom of economic relations. He assumes that everything (the choice of subject, the use of imagery, the decision to write about private life) must ultimately be explained by the “semicolonial, semifeudal” structure of the economy. Bagulaya posits that “Modern Waray poetry has so far been argued as the most recent cultural development of the persistent semicolonial, semifeudal Philippine economy (120). To Kimball, this is not analysis; it is ideological projection: seeing only what your theory tells you to see, regardless of what the work actually says or means.

Misinterpretation and Distortion of Meaning

Kimball’s criticism of Eagleton: “[He] drastically misreads the philosophers he discusses” misunderstanding Schopenhauer’s pessimism as a product of ‘class history’ rather than an essential feature of existence (24). Bagulaya fundamentally misrepresents the meaning and value of modern Waray poetry. He interprets its focus on the private realm, intimacy, and personal emotion as a sign of indifference, political unconsciousness, or support for the status quo. But as Kimball would argue, this is a total misreading. The turn toward the personal is not necessarily a “failure” or a hidden political stance; it can be a deliberate choice to explore human experience, beauty, memory, or individual truth, which are valid and meaningful in themselves.

Bagulaya claims that because these poets do not write explicitly about revolution or class struggle, they are “unconscious” or trapped in “split modernism.” This is like Eagleton saying art is only valuable if it serves a political end. Kimball would point out that Bagulaya judges the poetry only by his own political standard, completely missing its literary, emotional, or cultural value. He mistakes literary autonomy (the freedom of art to be about things other than politics) for a flaw or a contradiction.

Obsession with “Contradictions” That Exist Only in the Theory

Kimball’s criticism of Eagleton: “One must always be suspicious when a Marxist uses the term ‘contradiction,’ because it usually means that some aspect of reality is not conforming to his vision of things” (24). The entire analysis revolves around the idea of “split modernism,” the claim that modern Waray poetry is contradictory because it mixes modern techniques with traditional or romantic themes, and because it is caught between feudalism and modernity. Kimball would argue that this “contradiction” is not a flaw in the poetry, but a flaw in Bagulaya’s model.

There is nothing contradictory or wrong about a culture or literature blending old and new, local and foreign, personal and social. This is normal in every living tradition. But because Bagulaya measures reality against a rigid Marxist model of historical development (where things should move from feudal to modern in a straight line), he calls it a “split.” As Kimball said about Eagleton: “Minus that [Marxist model], it is merely a complex process that refuses to accommodate itself to the predictions of philosophers.” Bagulaya creates the problem himself, then blames the poetry for it.

Reducing Art to Ideology, Denying Intrinsic Value

Kimball’s criticism of Eagleton: “[He does not] care much for literature except in so far as it is an instrument for social change” (24). This is the core of Bagulaya’s argument. For him, poetry has no intrinsic value. It is good or bad, progressive or backward, only based on how well it reflects or challenges the economic base. He writes: “Modernist aesthetics is not enough… It takes a twenty-first century socialist revolution to transform poetry.”

To Kimball, this is the ultimate reductionism. It means that art is nothing more than a tool or a symptom. Bagulaya dismisses the beauty, skill, imagination, and emotional power of Waray poetry as secondary or even irrelevant. Just as Kimball rejected Eagleton’s view that aesthetic experience is “as coercive as law,” he would reject Bagulaya’s view that a poem about family or nature is actually just a hidden statement about surplus value or feudal exploitation. He would say: This tells us nothing about poetry, but everything about the critic’s obsession with politics.

Obscurantism and Dogma

Kimball’s criticism of Eagleton: His writing often becomes obscure and forced; full of jargon that keeps reality at bay. Bagulaya relies heavily on abstract terms like semicolonial semifeudalism, political unconscious, split modernism, ideological position, center vs. periphery, terms that function like a closed system. Once you accept these definitions, his conclusions follow automatically. But as Kimball would note, these are not discoveries; they are assumptions built into the language. By using this kind of jargon, Bagulaya avoids actually engaging with the poetry on its own terms. Instead of describing what the poems mean, he describes only how they fit (or fail to fit) his theory. And like Eagleton, he ends with a dogmatic conclusion: only a socialist revolution can save it, a solution that comes straight from ideology, not from literary analysis.

This analysis is a perfect example of what happens when literary criticism is swallowed whole by Marxist ideology. Bagulaya reads every poem as a coded document about class and economics, misinterprets the legitimate choice of personal themes as political failure, invents ‘contradictions’ that exist only in his own theoretical framework, and reduces the rich, diverse tradition of Waray poetry to nothing more than a reflection of the economy. It is not an analysis of literature, it is ideology in action. It tells us almost nothing about the poetry itself, but a great deal about the rigid, reductive worldview of the critic.

V

Bagulaya’s Writing Literary History gives space to Sugbo’s Waray verses. On page 277, you’ll find the opening lines of Sugbo’s poem “This Anticipation for Poetry”.

How wearisome this search for poetry

More so when neither moon nor sun on you shines

The speaker is describing that looking for, creating, or seeking out poetry feels tiring, tedious, and exhausting. The act of trying to find or write poetry is difficult and draining; it feels like a heavy, unending effort. The sun and moon are metaphors of light, hope, clarity, inspiration, and guidance. The speaker is saying that the effort to find or make poetry is already tiring, but it becomes even more difficult and disheartening when there is no inspiration, guidance, or hope. Without that “light” (creativity, meaning, or motivation), the search feels pointless, bleak, and heavy. It describes the frustration of trying to create or find art when there is no inspiration or reason to keep going. 

Short Biography

Fhen M.’s essay “Waray Literature and Kimball’s Critique of Contradictions in Eagleton’s Work” appears in Synchronized Chaos, an interdisciplinary journal focused on art, music, culture, science, and literature. Literary Heist also publishes his prose “Imagination of Disaster in the Major Works of Henry James: A Study by Genotiva.” From 2016 to 2017, he worked as an academic writer at Zeveral Academic Consultants Inc. in Pasig City, Metro Manila. During his tenure, his team leader gifted him a copy of the 2014 animated film The Prophet, adapted from Kahlil Gibran’s 1923 book. The film follows Mustafa, a poet and activist under house arrest in Ottoman-era Lebanon, as he engages in profound conversations with the townspeople on topics like work, love, and death. One of Gibran’s notable poems featured in the film is “On Work”.

Some Ethical Considerations

In a world necessarily conceived as vast or even immense, it is important to consider for ourselves—the necessary center of our attention and perception, and the sole source of our intelligent reflection—that we can only observe a very small part of it, then focus our attention on even less, and logically, if we can even think intelligently about an even smaller portion…

In this vast world, of which we can only reflect on a necessarily much smaller part, and in which we almost necessarily perceive, as far as I know, as men or women, the presence around us of other men or women who, as far as we can tell, constitute representatives of our species—and even if we are not entirely certain of this, since, in Descartes’ words, they could be automata or even images, after all—and although it may be considered that we could never know any of them completely for certain, because we are ourselves and they are not, we can nevertheless, through interaction with them, whether personal or cultural, and through the use of language or what our behavior involves : be corresponding with these people, often when we observe them, and if not, researching or learning about them, at the very least through language and then through logical, and often intelligent, reflection on their own language and behavior.

This allows us, through what we call social norms, to understand each person or group of people who can be perceived, observed, and then reflected upon in order to interact with them and shape our lives around them. By observing this social norm, convention, or consensus of behavior accepted by everyone within a society, and often simply by applying what is legitimate—respectful of the law and perhaps of the tolerance observed around us—we can live a life that is as safe and less dangerous as possible. Even though a part of this danger or risk to our own life, existence, cannot yet be entirely evaded as coming to us from the social body, certainly, this is commonly accepted, the life which is by reason closest to the conventions observed between various people and for their social organization is undoubtedly the least risky and can be the best condition for us to be able to, by our activity, hope to establish ourselves and prosper through study and work, as long as we find satisfaction or pleasure in it – I believe.

So, morality, this notion of directing our intelligent will toward our behavior in society, is often—and it seems to me as well—designated as the best way to live intelligently in society for as much as possible. This is because if each person determines the modality of their actions according to overall criteria that resonate with them, either through an affinity with ideas, or with people who share them, or through a taste for a particular activity, or perhaps a particular sensation or feeling, then those who necessarily have a life that unfolds in time and is oriented in space will be better able to find coherence between their efforts and their undertakings or interests, and between these and the relevance of their ideas in what they conceive or hope for, or in what they believe. The result, I believe, will be—or so it is said—a better sense of both themselves and their accurate understanding of the world, as they see fit.

This morality—or, as I would personally prefer to call it, for my own reflection here, the somewhat more limited term “ethics”—is traditionally defined by philosophers, particularly the Greeks, as an attraction to and a will to work for the good, whether considered for oneself or for others, and vice versa.

The good is often defined by these same philosophers as encompassing four notions: beauty, goodness, utility, and pleasure. Here, I, Timothy, who subscribe to this definition of both morality or ethics and that of the good, must acknowledge that I am not so important as to claim to know nothing more about it or to be unable to define it better. And while moral or ethical good is certainly a commonly established concept, I cannot claim to already possess it, but only that I can express a desire to approach it.

When we act legitimately and observe the tolerance of customs and traditions in our pursuit of good, then I believe that our intellectual capacity and perhaps a little intelligence will suffice for the life we ​​lead in society to be, indeed, through reciprocity I believe, good, beautiful, pleasant, and useful… And this is something I believe I have often observed around me. But as for the opposite of good, which we call evil, composed of physical or intellectual suffering and a supposed form of satisfaction derived from this suffering, whether inflicted to oneself or another, it is important to reject it; this is, moreover, the unequivocal social norm. And if you feel drawn to moving away from it, I believe, and if, unfortunately, you should because it has happened find it better to recover from it and then move away from it, this seems rational and appropriate to me. Moreover, if evil, the opposite of good, were composed of ugliness, wickedness, uselessness, and unpleasantness, I personally cannot envision any appeal in it, nor do I understand how anyone could find any in it. As the proverb says, if we reject evil and distance ourselves from it, it will not harm us.

However, if we strive for good, I believe that logically, through the exercise of our will, we increasingly align ourselves with it. Similarly, through study and action, we can improve our abilities. More generally, I believe that wanting to do good, then observing how to undertake it, and considering its principles in order to reflect on how to implement them, ultimately determining one’s behavior, and then persevering in this, is already, up to that point, doing good! Thus, we will begin to live better.

I have only intended to express very common considerations here in order to visualize them in writing, and I am certainly no one else capable of explaining or teaching a complex concept or line of reasoning to another, as I possess neither a vast vocabulary nor the texts of the masters of the past. However, even for myself, I realize as I write these few lines that, much as I expressed earlier, attempting to define this seemingly simple question of ethics in writing has required an effort that, as long as I applied myself to it, has greatly helped me to better understand it and opens up new perspectives now, allowing me, I hope, to then conceive of new ideas.

Timothée
Paris, France 
26.V.16. 

*****

Born in 1984 in Paris, France, Timothee Bordenave is a French author of fiction and essays, and a poet. He has published many books, about 25 to date, and his literary works have been translated in large parts to about 20 languages… He is also a visual artist, whose photographs and paintings have been shown in France and in various international locations.

He used to work directing libraries in Paris, and nowadays he is a full time creative.

One of the most influential branches of modern mathematics is calculus, a field primarily concerned with change, motion, and the behavior of quantities over time. Developed independently by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the seventeenth century, calculus revolutionized both mathematics and science by providing a systematic method for analyzing continuous variation. Today, it remains fundamental in disciplines such as physics, engineering, economics, and computer science.

Calculus is generally divided into two interconnected branches: differential calculus and integral calculus. Differential calculus focuses on rates of change and derivatives, enabling mathematicians to determine how rapidly a quantity changes in relation to another. For example, velocity represents the derivative of position with respect to time. This concept allows scientists to model motion accurately and predict physical behavior under varying conditions.

Integral calculus, on the other hand, concerns accumulation and the measurement of areas under curves. Through integration, mathematicians can calculate displacement, probability distributions, and even the total energy consumed within a system. The relationship between differentiation and integration is established through the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, widely regarded as one of the most elegant results in mathematical history.

Beyond theoretical significance, calculus has immense practical applications. Engineers use it to design bridges and aircraft, economists apply it to optimize profit and minimize costs, while computer scientists rely on it in machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence systems. Furthermore, medical researchers employ calculus-based models to study population growth, disease transmission, and neural activity.

Despite its usefulness, calculus is often considered intellectually demanding because it requires abstract reasoning and precise logical thinking. Students must understand limits, continuity, and infinite processes, concepts that challenge ordinary intuition. Nevertheless, mastering calculus enhances analytical skills and provides deeper insight into the mathematical structure of the natural world.

In conclusion, calculus is far more than a collection of formulas and equations. It is a powerful intellectual framework that explains motion, growth, and change throughout the universe. Its profound influence on science and technology demonstrates why calculus continues to be one of the most essential and transformative areas of mathematics.

My name is Sharifov Sirojiddin Shavkatovich, a passionate and ambitious teacher born on July 16 1989, in Shakhrisabz district, Kashkadarya Region, Uzbekistan.

I have been working as a math teacher for ages and l can say that l already could help over 1000 students enter their dream university.

With a deep interest in leadership, public speaking, and writing, I continue to work hard toward achieving academic excellence and inspiring others in my community.

Columbidae Equation

That pigeon is

lovely so it must

be a dove.

The dove who poops

on our porch

is a pigeon.

Ergo,

there is no such thing

as dove shit.

Shining Soul

There you are shining at the end of a tunnel.

Bright is your soul .

Happiness is in you.

May 19, 2008

Remember

Remember you told me you’d love me forever.

Remember how we met?

Remember Irish music brought us together.

Remember the laughter.

Remembering our love for each other.

Remember the sadness when life brought us despair.

Remember Remember

With my memories..

Where Is the Sunshine

It’s grey outside, snow blackened from the earth

Where Oh! Where is the sunshine?

Waves come and go over and over.

I listen to the waves and dream of sunshine 

May 19, 2008

Soulmate 

You are my soulmate.

Half is you, the other half is me. 

Death came to my other half.,

.

May 11, 2008

Peace

I like the colour of the nature

Is pink and green and blue

I like the dreams that comes to my sleep

Smiles at children’s faces

I like the creativity that brings me so much hapinnes

Poems and stories travel like birds

Feel like a child

Feel free

I like the colours of the rainbow

I like the rain

I like the sea

This is the.  peace for me

People from so many different countries

That became my brother and sister…

………

A book

A book open his pages

A boy start to read

And heroes come out of the chapter

Weapons start to make a noise

Bombs Was coming down to buildings

School were vanished

The boy start to cry….

Nobody could hear it

They were all occupied to count their small green and blue papers. .

So much paper

So many bombs

So many people occupied from the nothing …

That comes and destroy

Everything…

The boy closed the book…

He took another one

And he starts looking the beautiful illustrations

So Many flowers

And strange fruits

And a lot of animals that were sitting

 just around a big lake.

There was a forest also with big trees

And a big mountain

The chapter had a title:

_The peaceful world of

Olivia_

The boy continue to read

and that afternoon was the most amazing time in the world.. 

.