That Francisco Balagtas is the greatest Filipino poet. He is the William Shakespeare version of Philippines. The man who made Florante at Laura known as the greatest Literary Piece of Panitikang Filipino.
Florante at Laura(at is and in English) is a 399 stanza-awit(song) a Filipino style of poetry which consists of a perfect ryhme on 12 syllables(based on the traditional Filipino rhyme) tacles a quest of love against tyranny and lust of power. Tallying the complete 18 chapters of the awit alone would give you 1 596 perfect rhymes and lines, but considering the OFFERING( To Selya) And For the Readers with 22 and 6 stanzas it would give you 1,708 perfect lines and rhymes out from 427 stanzas. Just imagine how lucky we are young Filipino generations and our Panitikan to have Balagtas for the native words of our national language were preserved through his simple masterpiece. Without Balagtas' Florante at Laura we would lose some essential native Tagalog words that have been part of our nationality(so to all those fools that tell that FAL is useless man your ignorance is advicing us to kill our national language).
Florante at Laura was dedicated to Maria Asuncion Rivera(M.A.R.) Balagtas' muse because he was hoping that M.A.R. would still comeback on him even if it was married to Nanong Kapule. He wrote this while being held at a karsel(prison) in Pandakan because Nanong Kapule his rich rival paid a man to destroy Balagtas' name by stating that Balagtas' dishonor the dignity of the Riveras(MAR's Family). His agony made the greatest Filipino poetry piece and eventually the future and preservation of Tagalog(officially known as Filipino) language.
His name was made into a remarkable Filipino word as Balagtasan in honor to his contributions of Filipino Poetry. Balagtasan is a form of debate where the contestants are going to debate through artistic poetry and being organized by a modulator called Lakambini. Balagtas is not just a poet he is a hero of Wikang Filipino.