Important Points to remember in 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and

the World
Philippine Authors during the Spanish Occupation

 Francisco Baltazar (1788-1862), the master of traditional Tagalog poetry, became well-known for his work Florante at Laura (1838–1861), the
most famous metrical romance of the country.
 Pedro Paterno (1857–1911) wrote Sampaguitas y poesias varias (1880), the first poetry collection in Spanish by a Filipino; and the novel in
Spanish Ninay (1885), considered to be the first Filipino novel.
 Jose Rizal (1861–1896), a prominent ilustrado and the country’s national hero, is famous for the novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.
These novels portray the corruption and abuse of the Spanish officials and the clergy.
 Andres Bonifacio (1863–1897), the founder of the Katipunan, wrote the poem “Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa.” This poem appeared in
the Kalayaan, the official newspaper of the Katipunan, in March 1896.
 Leona Florentino (1849–1884), known as the “mother of Philippine women’s literature,” was a poet in boh Ilocano and Spanish.

Philippine Literature during the American and the Japanese Periods

 The production of literary works in English is the direct result of the American colonization of the Philippines. The first collection of poetry in
English is Filipino Poetry (1924), edited by Rodolfo Dato. The short story “Dead Stars” (1925) by Paz Marquez Benitez is considered as the first
Filipino modern short story in English. A Child of Sorrow (1921) by Zoilo M. Galang is the first Filipino novel in English. The novel His Native
Soil (1940) by Juan C. Laya won first prize in the First Commonwealth Literary Awards in 1940.
 Filipino writers in English during the apprenticeship period (1900–1930) imitated American writing. The poet Fernando Maramag writes in the
Romantic tradition in his sonnet “Moonlight on Manila Bay” (1912). Filipino fictionists copied Sherwood Anderson, William Saroyan, and Ernest
Hemingway. Jose Garcia Villa used the Anderson pattern. Manuel Arguilla and N. V. M. Gonzalez were influenced by Anderson and
Hemingway. Francisco Arcellana was influenced by Saroyan.

Contemporary Period Writers

 Nick Joaquin, a National Artist for Literature awardee, wrote articles under the name of Quijano de Manila. His short story "May Day Eve,"
published in 1947, is about love in a patriarchal society. It also made use of magic realism.
 F. Sionil Jose, one of the most widely read Filipino writers in English, wrote the short story "Waywaya," which is about pre-Hispanic society and
the people’s struggle for moral order.
 Alejandro Roces, a Filipino author, essayist, and dramatist, wrote the short story "We Filipinos Are Mild Drinkers." This story focuses on the
drinking habits and culture of Filipinos and Americans.
 Edith L. Tiempo's poem "The Return" is a sentimental piece that talks about life in old age.
 Horacio de la Costa wrote the essay "History and Philippine Culture," which emphasizes the importance of understanding and presenting a
nation’s culture.
 Stevan Javellana wrote the first postwar Filipino novel in English, Without Seeing the Dawn. This novel narrates what people experienced during
Points to remember:
World War II under the Japanese rule in the Philippines.

1. Folktale – This is a characteristically anonymous, timeless, and placeless tale circulated orally among a people.
2. Fable – This features animal characters or inanimate objects that behave like people.
3. Legend – This is presented as history but is unlikely to be true.
4. Myth – This is told to explain a belief, a practice, or a natural phenomenon.
5. Epic – This narrative poem celebrates the adventures and achievements of a hero.
6. Narrative Poetry - a type of poem that tells a story, but the poet lets one or more of the story’s characters act out the story
7. Song - is known to be a musical work, an abstract entity that serves as an umbrella for many versions or renditions which is meant to be
sung
8. Sonnet - a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter
9. Elegy - is known to be meditative poem lamenting the death of a public personage or a friend or loved one; be extension, any reflective
lyric on the broader theme of human morality
10. Prose Fiction - presents a story that is invented and not literally ‘true
11. Poetry - The emphasis is the use of aesthetics of language and the use of techniques such as repetition, meter and rhyme. It heavily
uses imagery and word association to quickly convey emotions
12. Drama - a story acted out, it shows people doing through some eventful period in their lives, seriously or humorously.
13. Myth - often known to be a story of origins, how the world and everything in it came to be. Also, is known to be unverified story handed
down from earlier times from generation to generation, especially one popularly believed to be historical.
14. Parable - short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like
Humans.
15. Novel -known to be a fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of
numerous characters placed in a number of different situations and is usually known to focus on one important event in the lives of a small
number of central characters.
16. Fairytale - a piece of prose fiction marked by a relative shortness and density, organized into a plot and some kind of denouement at the end.
17. Dramatic Poetry - a type of poetry that is comparatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single speaker presents a state of mind or an emotional
state. It retains some of the elements of song which is said to be its origin.
18. Lyric Poetry - a type of poetry that gives a verbal representation, in verse, of a sequence of connected events. It propels characters through a plot. It is
always told by a narrator. It may tell a love story, the story of father and son, or the deeds of a hero or heroine.
19. Narrative poetry - a type of poem that tells a story, but the poet lets one or more of the story’s characters act out the story.
20. Ode - a long lyrics poem with a serious subject written in an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure.
21. Ballad - It is a song, originally transmitted orally, which tells a story. It is an important form of folk poetry which was adapted for literally uses from the
sixteenth century onwards. It is usually a four-stanza, alternating tetrameter and trimester.
22. Fiction – is the term we used to refer to stories that are written about events that are not real; they are products of the imagination of the writer.
23. Plot – is the series of events in a story which have a causal relationship with each other.
24. Plot devices – are techniques that the writer uses to creatively present the events in the story.
25. Narrative – is the way by which a story is told.
26. Flashback – is a plot device where the story moves away from the current events happening in the story to a time in the past.