Today, Google did something that would make any Filipino high school teacher proud. In honor of poet Francisco Balagtas’ 230th birthday, Google featured illustrations inspired by his magnum opus Florante at Laura (Florante and Laura).
See it for yourself here.
Balagtas, who was born on April 2, 1788 in the province of Bulacan is known for championing the local language Tagalog during a time when most literature was written in Spanish.
He wrote Florante at Laura while in prison and was inspired by María Asunción Rivera, a woman he met and fell in love with after moving to Manila. The epic love story is set in the Kingdom of Albania and was written in a poetic format, making use of figures of speech and a specific rhythm and rhyme scheme.
It is required reading for all high school students in the Philippines and is one of the most well-known stories in Philippine literature. Some schools even require their students to memorize passages, which isn’t easy because it’s written in old Tagalog.
Florante at Laura has been adapted into different forms many times including comic books and more recently, the 2014 play FnL that incorporated Balagtas’ traditional lines with English and Cebuano dialogue as well as subculture vocabulary like bekimon, which is used in gay subcultures, and jejemon, a type of street slang.
Google Doodle regularly honors notable figures from all over the world.
