Philippine Literary History

• Pre-colonial Period (-1564)

  • considered to be the longest period of Philippine literature
  • Use of native syllabary (Baybayin)
  • Literature was mostly oral in tradition
  • Literature bore the mark of the community
• Characteristics of Oral Literature

  • Spontaneous and instinctive
  • Doesn't have drafts
  • Not planned
  • On the spot
  • Uses the language of daily life
  • Crude in ideology and phraseology
• Conventions of Oral Literature

  • Formulaic repetitions (Rhymes)
  • Stereotyping of characters
  • There are characters that have common representation of characters
  • Men are usually the main characters (brave, heroic, strong, etc.)
  • Women have submissive roles (housewives, weak, etc.)
  • J. Neil Garcia - idea of babaylan; babaylans (priests) are women—if no women are around during rituals, men will cross-dress
  • Irregular rhythmic and musical devices
  • Rhyme
  • Chanted
  • Sung
• Common Literary Forms of Oral Literature

  • Riddles (Bugtong)
  • A traditional verbal expression containing one or two descriptive elements, a pair of which maybe in opposition to each other, there referent of the elements is to be guessed
  • Riddles employ imagery
  • Riddles require the audience to see the similarity between the object literally described and the object that is actually referred to or the answer to the riddle
• Proverbs (Salawikain)

  • Customarily used and served as laws or rules on good behavior and as practical guides in living life by our ancestors. These are like allegories or parables that impart lessons for the young
  • The two essential features of proverbs are its didactism for the contents and its conciseness for the form
  • Didactic - preachy, full of lessons
• Short Poems

  • Short poems during the pre-colonial period are mostly quatrains (4 lines) with monorhyming heptasyllabic (7 syllable) lines. The Hanunoo-Mangyans of Mindoro call these poems ambahan.
  • In Sancular and Noceda's Vocabulariode la lengua tagala (1854), these short poems were given the name tanaga. According to Lumbera (6), the tanaga recorded by Sanlucarand Noceda is likely to be a Hispanized descendant of the ambahan
  • Tanaga is the modernized version of ambahan
• Chants (Bulong)

  • Commonly used in rituals and enchantment
• Folksongs (Awiting Bayan)

  • According to Godinez-Ortega, folk sons are "a form of folk lyric which expresses the hopes and aspirations, the people's lifestyles as well as their loves."
  • Folk songs are one of the oldest forms of Philippine literature that emerged in the pre-colonial period. These songs mirrored the early forms of culture
  • Kundiman (songs of love)
  • Kumintang o Tagumpay (songs of war)
  • Ang Dalit o Imno (songs for Visayan gods)
  • Ang Oyayi o Hele (lullaby)
  • Diona (songs for wedding)
  • Soliranin (songs for laborers)
  • Talindaw (songs for fishing)
  • Panambitan or Tagulaylay (song for the dead)
• Myths (Mito)

  • deal mainly with the creation of the universe, the origin of man, the gods and supernatural beings, and native culture heroes
  • Older than legends
  • Gods or Goddesses
  • Religious undertone
  • Purely pre-colonial
• Legends (Alamat)

  • are prose narratives like myths that are regarded true by the narrator and audience but are set in a period more remote, when the world was much as it is today
  • Has elements of foreign influence and colonialism
  • Pre-colonial because we bartered with foreigners that were traveling
• Folktales (Kuwentong Bayan)

  • are made up of stories about life, adventure, love, horror, and humor where one can derive lessons about life. These are useful to us because they help us appreciate our environment, evaluate our personalities, and improve our perspectives in life
• Fables (Pabula)

  • are stories that use animals as characters and are meant to impart lessons
• Rituals and Dance (Drama)

  • Drama has not yet evolved during the pre-colonial period and its simplest form are mostly mimetic dances imitating natural cycles and work activities
• Epics

  • Damania Eugenio defined epics as "long heroic narratives which recount the adventures of tribal heroes."
  • For E. Arsenio Manuel, the six characteristics of epics are:
  • Narratives of sustained length
  • Based on oral tradition
  • Revolves around supernatural events and heroic deeds
  • In the form of verse
  • Either chanted or sung
  • Has a certain seriousness of purpose, embodying or validating the beliefs, customs, ideals, or life values of the people
• Spanish Colonial Period (1565-1897)

  • Spain imposed to the Filipinos the Spanish monarchy and Roman Catholic religion
  • Parish priests had direct contact to the Filipinos
  • Printing press was brought by Spanish missionaries
  • Spanish priests, through the printing press, ensured that literatures centered on Catholic religion
• May Bagyo Ma't May Rilim (1605)

  • Published in Memorial de la vida Cristiana
  • Written by an unnamed native, this poem bears an imagery of a turbulent storm to affirm Christian heroism
  • Contains characteristics of pre-colonial oral literatures such as the use of the heptasyllabic line and monorhyme while giving recognition to the salvation brought by the Catholic religion
  • Perfectly captures the merging of the pre-colonial culture and the culture of the Spanish colonizers
  • Form is pre-colonial but the meaning is catholic—Spanish
• Ang Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Panginoon Natin (1704)

  • Written by Gaspar Aquino de Belen, considered to be the one that exemplified conscious design and careful composition
  • Depicts the last moments of Christ eventually leading to his crucifixion and resurrection
  • Replaced the epics of the pagan past and, just like the pre-colonial epics, was sung with a fixed melody during Lenten season
  • Has different authors but Gaspar Aquino de Belen is the most poetic
• Sinakulo - a stage play that also depicts the passion of the Christ and was performed during Lenten season
• Pasyon - poem, read, only epic in the Spanish period
• Komedya - native poetic theater; they are later known as moro-moro or poetic theater about Christian and Moorish warriors
• Awit - a narrative poem that consisted for four 12-syllable monorhyming lines. It reached its peak during the first half of the 19th century
• Florante at Laura (1838) - the most popular awit written during the Spanish colonial period written by Francisco Baltazar
• Korido - also a narrative poem but with four 8-syllable monorhyming lines. The most notable poet was Jose de la Cruz better known as "Huseng Sisiw".
• Carillo - play that uses shadows as its main spectacle. This is created animating figures-made from cardboard, which are projected onto a white screen
• Tibag - dramatic reenactment of St. Helena's search for the Holy Cross
• Duplo or Karagatan - native dramas that are connected to Catholic mourning rituals and harvest celebrations
• Zarzuela - musical comedies or melodramas that deal with elemental passions of human beings
• Urbana at Feliza (1864)

  • written by Padre Modesto de Castro, a native priest
  • This book of manners tells that exchange of letters between Urbana and Feliza
  • This book was to establish the stereotype of popular characters who were to people Tagalog novels and dramas during the 20th century
• Ninay (1885)

  • written by Pedro Paterno
  • the first novel in Filipino
  • This tells the story of the young Ninay and her demise brought by her tragic love with Carlo and the loss of her parents
• Noli me Tangere (1887) and El Filibusterismo (1891) - two novels written by Jose Rizal. Noli Me Tangere marks the first time realism as a literary concept entered Philippine writing
• Ang Pasyong Dapat Ipag-alab ng Taong Baba sa Kalupitan ng Fraile - in this poem written by Marcelo H. Del Pilar, he use dparody to attack the Spanish friars and urges the faithful to throw them out
• Liwanag at Dilim - short essays written by Emilio Jacinto meant to be published in the Katipunan newspaper Kalayaan
• Katapusang Hibik ng Pilipinas - written by Andres Bonifacio, this poem makes reference to earlier poems written by Hermenegildo Flores (Hibik ng Pilpinas sa Inang Espanya) and Marcelo H. Del Pilar (Sagot ng Espanya sa Hibik ng Pilipinas). Aims to establish once and for all the break from reformism
• American Colonial Period (1898-1945)

  • Spain ceded control of the country to the United States for $20 million in the Treaty of Paris in 1898
  • The institutionalization of the public education system in 1901
  • English was used as the medium of instruction
  • Writers continued to write in Spanish, Tagalog, and other regional languages
• American Colonial Period (1898-1945)

  • Many newspapers and magazines made their appearance. These gave writers the avenue to publish their works
  • Several groups of writers continued the legacy left by writers from the Spanish colonial period
  • The spirit of nationalism in Balagtas’ poems and the propaganda movement primarily Rizal and his poems and novels are continued by Tagalog poets who came to be known as Balagtasista
• The Period of Re-orientation (1898-1910)


  Writers during this time are still trying to learn the new language brought by the American colonizers
• The Period of Imitation (1910-1925)


  Writers were still emulating the style and mode of writing of writers coming from the Anglo-American Tradition
• A Child of Sorrow (1921)

  first Filipino novel in English by Zoilo Galang
• The Period of Self-Discovery (1925-1941)


  Writers during this time were already able to use the English language as if it was their own native language
• Dead Stars (1925) by Paz Marquez Benitez


  paved the beginning of the period of self-discovery