Literature of the Philippines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The literature of the Philippines started with fables and legends of pre-colonial Philippines, written in a pre-hispanic writing system, down to the Mexican (New Spain) and Spanish influences, until today where a lot of Philippine literature is written in English.
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[edit] Early Writing System
Compared to other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines has very few artifacts that show evidence of writing. However literacy, with a script called Baybayin, was widespread in Luzon when the Spaniards came in 1521.
The Spaniards recorded that people in Manila and other places wrote on bamboo and specially prepared palm leaves, using knives and styli. They were using the ancient Tagalog script which had 17 basic symbols, three of which were the vowels a/e, i, and o/u. Each basic consonantal symbol had the inherent a sound: ka, ga, nga, ta, da, na, pa, ba, ma, ya, la, wa, sa, and ha.
A diacritical mark, called "kudlit", modified the sound of the symbol. The kudlit could be a dot, a short line, or even an arrowhead. When placed above the symbol, it changed the inherent sound of the symbol from a/e to i; placed below, the sound became o/u. Thus a ba/be with a kudlit placed above became a bi; if the kudlit was placed below, the symbol became a bo/bu.Ba Be Bi Bo Bu
[edit] Colonial Literature (16th-18th Century)
The arrival of the Spaniards in 1565 brought Spanish culture and language. The Spanish conquerors, governing from Mexico for the Crown of Spain, established a class system that was based on place of birth and soon introduced Roman Catholicism to the native population. Augustinian, Franciscan and later Jesuit missionaries taught Christianity throughout the islands. The priests and friars preached in local languages and employed indigenous peoples as translators, creating a bilingual class known as ladinos.
The natives, called "indios", initially were not taught Spanish, but the bilingual individuals, notably poet-translator Gaspar Aquino de Belen, produced devotional poetry written in the Roman script in the Tagalog language. Pasyon, begun by Aquino de Belen, is a narrative of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which has circulated in many versions. Later, the Spanish ballads of chivalry, the corrido, provided a model for secular literature. Verse narratives, or komedya, were performed in the regional languages for the illiterate majority. They were also written in the Roman alphabet in the principal languages and widely circulated.
In the early seventeenth century a Tagalog printer, Tomas Pinpin, set out to write a book in romanized phonetic script, which would teach Tagalogs the principles of learning Castilian. His book, published by the Dominican press where he worked, appeared in 1610. Unlike the missionary's grammar (which Pinpin had set in type), the Tagalog native's book dealt with Spanish rather than the native tongues. Pinpin's book was the first such work ever written and published by a Philippine native. As such, it is richly instructive for what it tells us about the interests that animated Tagalog translation and, by implication, Tagalog conversion in the early colonial period. Pinpin construed translation in ways that tended less to oppose than to elude the totalizing claims of Spanish signifying convention.
[edit] Classical Literature in Spanish (19th Century)
In 1863 a Spanish decree introduced universal education creating free public schooling in Spanish [1]. This had an important role in the rise of an educated class called the "Ilustrados" such as National Hero Jose Rizal, who wrote important literary works in Spanish, considered Philippine Classical Literature. Some members of this cultural elite include: José Rizal, Pedro Paterno, Jesús Balmori, Huerta, Farolán, Licsi, Lumba, and Castillo. Major historical documents such as the national anthem, the Malolos Constitution or Constitución Política de Malolos and revolutionary propaganda is also considered classical literature. Nationalism was first propagated in the Spanish language, especially in the writings of Marcelo H. Del Pilar or "Plaridel" in the La Solidaridad publications. In Cebu, the first Spanish newspaper, El Boletín de Cebú, was published in 1886.
[edit] Modern Literature (20th Century)
Ironically, the greatest portion of Spanish literature by native Filipinos was written during the American commonwealth period, because the Spanish language was still predominant among the Filipino intellectuals. One of the country's major writers, Claro Mayo Recto, continued writing in Spanish until 1946. Other well-known Spanish-language writers, especially during the American period were Isidro Marfori, Cecilio Apostol (Pentelicas, 1941), Fernando Ma. Guerrero (Crisalidas, 1914), Flavio Zaragoza Cano (Cantos a Espana and De Mactan a Tirad) and others.
Among the newspapers published in Spanish were El Renacimiento, La Democracia, La Vanguardia, El Pueblo de Iloilo, El Tiempo and others. Three magazines, The Independent, Philippine Free Press and Philippine Review were published in English and Spanish.
In 1915, the local newspapers began publishing sections in English. Cebu had its share of writers in Spanish, most of whom flourished during the early decades of the century. Although their output would diminish in later years, Jose del Mar won a Zobel Prize (Premio Zobel) for his work Perfiles in 1965.
In Asian literature, Filipinos especially excel in short stories. Leon Comber, the former British publisher of the Heinemann Writing in Asia Series and the head judge for the Asiaweek Short Story Competition commended the Filipino writers in his introduction to the book Prize Winning Asian Fiction, published in 1991 by Times Book International. He wrote: "Many of the best short stories came from the Philippines... because Filipino writers felt at ease using English as a medium of expression. In fact, their country is the third-largest English-speaking nation in the world and they take to writing in the language as a form of 'artistic expression' and show just as much zest and natural talent for it as they do for painting, music and the other arts."
[edit] Literature by languages
- Cebuano literature
- Hiligaynon literature
- Ilokano literature
- Tagalog literature
- Waray literature
- Philippine epic poetry
- Philippine Literature in English
- Philippine Literature in Filipino
- Philippine Literature in Spanish
[edit] Notable People
- Carlos P. Romulo - He was the first Asian to win America's coveted Pulitzer Prize in Journalism(English).
- Jose Rizal
- Leona Florentino
- Isabelo de los Reyes
- Marcelo H. Del Pilar
- Francisco Balagtas
- Amado V. Hernandez
- Carlos Bulosan
- Teodoro M. Locsin
- Claro M. Recto
[edit] Notable Works
- Biag ni Lam-ang - Ilocano epic.
- Ibong Adarna
- Florante at Laura
- Doctrina Christiana
- Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo - both written by Jose Rizal in Spanish - created controversy among the Spanish authority in the Philippines. They were instrumental in creating a Filipino sense of identity during the Spanish colonial period by caricaturing and exposing the abuses of the Spanish colonial government and religious authority.
- Manuvu's Tuwaang
- Sulod's Hinilawod
- Maranaw's Bantugan
- Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas by Antonio de Morga
- Maragtas - A collection of legends of ten chiefs(datus) who escaped from the tyranny of Datu Makatunaw of Borneo to the island of Panay. The chiefs and followers are believed to be ancestors of the Visayans. The arrival is celebrated in the festival of the Ati-atihan ni Kalibo, Aklan.While they are legends, they are also based on actual facts and events. The legends were compiled into a book by Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro in 1907.
- The Good Fight - Manuel L. Quezon
- Herbarium aliarumque stirpium in insula Luzone Philippinarum by Georg Joseph Kamel
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- 100 Nobelang Tagalog Full text, online collection of selected 100 Tagalog novels published by Filipiniana.net
- Ninay The first Filipino novel written by Pedro Paterno published by Filipiniana.net
- Juan Masili: Ang Pinuno ng Tulisan Example of a Filipino short story during the early American period
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