IV. PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

BACKGROUND OF PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

This course introduces college students to the major genres of Philippine literature across various regional/ethnic cultures from pre-colonial times to the present, through a sampling of pieces in English, Filipino, and Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a and Aklanon, as well as translations from various regional languages. It employs reading strategies that will help students draw out insights and values from literature and appreciate the relevance of studying literature and culture to their lives and to the nation. This course gives primacy to literature by West Visayans to foster appreciation for the contribution of the region to Philippine literature.

Philippine Literature is a diverse and rich group of works that has evolved side-by-side with the country’s history. Literature had started with fables and legends made by the ancient Filipinos long before the arrival of Spanish influence. The main themes of Philippine literature focus on the country’s pre-colonial cultural traditions and the socio-political histories of its colonial and contemporary traditions.

It is not a secret that many Filipinos are unfamiliar with much of the country's literary heritage, especially those that were written long before the Spaniards arrived in our country. This is due to the fact that the stories of ancient time were not written, but rather passed on from generation to generation through word of mouth. Only during 1521 did the early Filipinos became acquainted with literature due to the influence of the Spaniards on us. But the literature that the Filipinos became acquainted with are not Philippine-made, rather, they were works of Spanish authors.

So successful were the efforts of colonists to blot out the memory of the country's largely oral past that present-day Filipino writers, artists and journalists are trying to correct this inequity by recognizing the country's wealth of ethnic traditions and disseminating them in schools through mass media.

The rise of nationalistic pride in the 1960s and 1970s also helped bring about this change of attitude among a new breed of Filipinos concerned about the "Filipino identity."

Philippine Literature in English has its roots in the efforts of the American forces at the turn of the century to pacify the Filipino people and instill in them the American ideals of "universality, practicality, and democracy." By 1901, public education was institutionalized, with English serving as the medium of instruction. Around 600 educators who arrived in that year aboard the S.S. Thomas replaced the soldiers who also functioned as teachers. The people learned the language quickly, helped no doubt by the many support systems, e.g., books, magazines, newspapers, etc., outside of the academe.

       Today, around 80% of the population could understand and speak English

       The founding of Philippine Normal School in 1901 and the University of the Philippines in 1908, as well as of English newspapers like the Daily Bulletin (1900), The Cable news (1902), and the Philippines Free Press (1905), helped boost the spread of English. The first ten years of the century already saw the verse and prose efforts of the Filipinos in such student publications as The Filipino Students� Magazine (first issue, 1905), which was a short-lived quarterly published in Berkeley, California, by Filipino pensionados (or government scholars); the UP College Folio (first issue, 1910); The Coconut of the Manila High School (first issue, 1912); and The Torch of the PNS (first issue, 1913). But it was not until the �30s and �40s that Filipino writers in English emerged into their own.

       Newspapers and magazines were founded�like the Philippines Herald in 1920, the Philippine Education Magazine in 1924 (renamed Philippine Magazine in 1928), and later the Manila Tribune , the Graphic, the Woman�s Outlook, and the Woman�s Home Journal�that helped introduce to the reading public the works of Paz Marquez Benitez, Jose Garcia Villa.Cash incentives were given to writers in 1921 when the Free Press started to pay for published contributions and awarded P1,000 for the best stories. The organization in 1925 of the Philippine Writers Association and in 1927 of the U.P. Writers Club, which put out the Literary Apprentice, also helped encourage literary production. In 1939, the Philippine Writers League was put up by politically conscious writers, intensifying their debate with those in the "art for art�s sake" school of Villa.

       Among the significant publications of this fertile period were: Filipino Poetry (1924) by Rodolfo Dato; English-German Anthology of Filipino Poets (1934) by Pablo Laslo; Jose Garcia Villa�s Many Voices (1939) and Poems of Doveglion (1941); Poems (1940) by Angela Manalang Gloria; Chorus for America: Six Philippine Poets (1942) by Carlos Bulosan; Zoilo Galang�s A Child of Sorrow (1921), the first Filipino novel in English, and Box of Ashes and Other Stories (1925), the first collection of stories in book form; Villa�s Footnote to Youth: Tales of the Philippines and Others (1933); The Wound and the Scar (1937) by Arturo Rotor, a collection of stories; Winds of April (1940) by NVM Gonzalez; His Native Soil (1941) by Juan C. Laya; Manuel Arguilla�s How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and Other Stories ( 1941); Galangs�s Life and Success (1921), the first volume of essays in English; and the influential Literature and Society (1940) by Salvador P. Lopez. Dramatic writing took a backseat due to the popularity of vaudeville and Tagalog movies, although it was kept alive by the playwright Wilfredo Ma. Guerrero.

       In 1940, the first Commonwealth Literary Awards were given by Pres. Manuel Quezon to the following winners: Salvador P. Lopez for Literature and Society (essay); Manuel Arguilla for How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and Other Stories (short story); R. Zulueta da Costa for Like the Molave (poetry); and Juan C. Laya for His Native Soil (novel).

       During the Japanese Occupation when Tagalog was favored by the Japanese military authority, English writing was consigned to limbo. After the war however, it picked up anew and claimed the fervor and drive for excellence that continue to this day. Stevan Javellana�s Without Seeing the Dawn (1947), the first postwar novel in English, was published in the USA. In 1946, the Barangay Writers Project was founded to help publish books in English.

       Against a background marked by political unrest and government battles with Hukbalahap guerrillas, writers in English in the postwar period honed their sense of craft and techniques. Among the writers who came to their own during this time were: Nick Joaquin, NVM Gonzalez, Francisco Arcellana, Carlos Bulosan, F. Sionil Jose, Ricaredo Demetillo, Kerima Polotan Tuvera, Carlos Angeles, Edilberto Tiempo, Amador Daguio, Estrella Alfon, Alejandrino Hufana, Gregorio Brillantes, Bienvenido Santos, Dominador Ilio, T.D. Agcaoili, Alejandro Roces, Sinai C. Hamada, Linda Ty-Casper, Virginia Moreno, Luis Dato, Gilda Cordero Fernando, Abelardo and Tarrosa Subido, Manuel A. Viray, Vicente Rivera Jr., and Oscar de Zuniga, among many others.

       Fresh from studies in American universities, usually as Fulbright or Rockefeller scholars, a number of these writers introduced New Criticism to the country and applied its tenets in literature classes and writing workshops. In this way were born the Silliman Writers Summer Workshop (started in 1962 by Edilberto and Edith Tiempo) and the U.P. Writers Summer Workshop (started in 1965 by the Department of English at the U.P.).To this day, these workshops help discover writing talents and develop them in their craft.

       The Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature were instituted in 1950 and became synonymous with quality literature and the new writer�s rite of passage to fame. It gave awards in the various genres in English and Pilipino, and more recently, expanded its range to include categories for regional writings. Government recognition of literary merit took a turn for the better through the Republic Cultural Heritage Awards (1960), the Pro Patria Awards for Literature (1961), and the National Artist Awards (1973). Only the last survives today, and such honor and privilege had been given only to the following creative writers: Amado V. Hernandez and Jose Garcia Villa (1973), Nick Joaquin (1976), Carlos P. Romulo (1982), Francisco Arcellana (1990), NVM Gonzalez, and Rolando Tinio (1997) (Ed's note: Edith Tiempo was named National Artist in 2000). The prestigious international Magsaysay Award has also been given to just three Filipinos for their literary achievements: F. Sionil Jose, Nick Joaquin, and Bienvenido Lumbera. To this day, yearly awards are handed out by the Philippines Free Press and Graphic magazines for the best poetry and fiction published in their pages.

       Like the Veronicans in the thirties, writers continued to form groups, the better to compete with and advance one another�s writings. Notable of these literary barkadas are the Ravens in the fifties (with Adrian Cristobal, Virginia Moreno, Alejandrino Hufana, Andres Cristobal Cruz, and Hilario Francia Jr., among others), the Bagay poets of Ateneo in the sixties (Rolando Tinio, Bienvenido Lumbera, Jose Lacaba, and Edgar Alegre), and the Philippine Literary Arts Council in the eighties ( Gemino H. Abad, Cirilo Bautista, Ricardo de Ungria, Alfrredo Navarro Salanga, and Alfred Yuson).

       In spite of a lack of a critical tradition, poetry and fiction in English continue to thrive and be written with depth, sophistication, and insight. Among the important and still active fictionists of recent years are: F.Sionil Jose, Erwin Castillo, Ninotchka Rosca, Antonio Enriquez, Resil Mojares, Renato Madrid, Wilfredo Nolledo, Alfred Yuson, Amadis Ma. Guerrero, Jose Dalisay Jr., Jaime An Lim, Eric Gamalinda, and Charlson Ong. And among the poets: Emmanuel Torres, Cirilo Bautista, Gemino Abad, Federico Licsi Espino Jr., Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, Emmanuel Lacaba, Marjorie Evasco, Simeon Dumdum Jr., Ma. Luisa Aguilar Carino, Anthony Tan, Elsa Coscoluella, Ramon Sunico, Ricardo de Ungria, and Marne Kilates.

       Dramatic writing never really took off after Guerrero and Joaquin, due perhaps to the awareness by the writers, especially in the seventies, of the implausibility and severe limitations of using English on stage. Nevertheless, theater in English continues to be presented through Broadway adaptations and the like by Repertory Philippines and other small drama groups.

       Not yet a hundred years old, Philippine writing in English has already established a tradition for itself and continues to help define�together with the literatures in the regions�the self and soul of the Filipino.  

                                         2 KINDS OF LITERATURE

1.PROSE-the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or Prose is a form of language which applies ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure (as in traditional poetry). While there are critical debates on the construction of prose, its simplicity and loosely defined structure has led to its adoption for the majority of spoken dialogue, factual discourse as well as topical and fictional writing. It is commonly used, for example, in literature, newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias, broadcasting, film, history, philosophy, law and many other forms of communication.

 

2. POETRY-There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."

Poetry is a lot of things to a lot of people. Homer's epic, The Odyssey, described the wanderings of the adventurer, Odysseus, and has been called the greatest story ever told. During the English Renaissance, dramatic poets like John Milton, Christopher Marlowe, and of course Shakespeare gave us enough to fill textbooks, lecture halls, and universities. Poems from the romantic period include Goethe's Faust (1808), Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" and John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn."
Poetry is the chiseled marble of language; it's a paint-spattered canvas - but the poet uses words instead of paint, and the canvas is you. Poetic definitions of poetry kind of spiral in on themselves, however, like a dog eating itself from the tail up. Let's get nitty. Let's, in fact, get gritty. I believe we can render an accessible definition of poetry by simply looking at its form and its purpose:
One of the most definable characteristics of the poetic form is economy of language. Poets are miserly and unrelentingly critical in the way they dole out words to a page. Carefully selecting words for conciseness and clarity is standard, even for writers of prose, but poets go well beyond this, considering a word's emotive qualities, its musical value, its spacing, and yes, even its special relationship to the page. The poet, through innovation in both word choice and form, seemingly rends significance from thin air.