Epifanio de Los Santos - Literary and Scholarly Works

Literary and Scholarly Works

Epifanio was considered one of the best Filipino writers in Spanish of his time and regarded as a literary genius. When he was young, he was the first Filipino to become a member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Language, Spanish Royal Academy of Literature and Spanish Royal Academy of History in Madrid. It was the admiration of his writings that Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo asked the Real Academia Española to open its door to the benevolent young native scholar.

Epifanio was a young associate editor of the revolutionary paper "La Independencia"(1898), writing in prose under the pen name G. Solon and also a member of the Malolos Congress. He also co-founded other newspapers like La Libertad, El Renaciemento, La Democracia, La Patria and Malaysia. He also made valuable publications namely; Algo de Prosa (1909), Literatura Tagala (1911), El Teatro Tagala (1911) Nuestra Literatura (1913), El Proceso del Dr. José Rizal (1914), Folklore Musical de Filipinas (1920). He also authored Filipinos y filipinistas (Filipinos and Filipinists), Filipinas para los Filipinos, Cuentos y paisajes Filipinos (Philippine Stories and Scenes) and Criminality in the Philippines (1903–1908).

He was a member of "Samahan ng mga Mananagalog" which was initiated by Felipe Calderon in 1904, and it includes active members with the likes of Lope K. Santos, Rosa Sevilla, Hermenigildo Cruz, Jaime C. de Veyra and Patricio Mariano. He was a polyglot, being fluent in Spanish, English, French, German, Ita, Tingian, and Ibalao. He notably translated Florante and Laura classically into sonorous Castilian. As one of the brilliant writers in the Golden Age of Fil-Hispanic literature who had published numerous titles and books, he was an honorary member of the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española.

As a versatile researcher, he also contributed to early Philippine studies on anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, linguistics and demographics.

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